Part 26
1
Jonnie and Angus were straight up against it.
They had their heads bent over the worktable in the console enclosure. Before them lay an open technical manual Angus had found in Terl’s recycler basket. Psychlo technical manuals were bad enough, but this was exceptionally bad. There is nothing worse than a cloudy operator’s handbook produced for an already informed reader which omits basics and essentials.
It was ruining Jonnie’s half-formed plans and introducing a tactical dilemma. Entitled Cautionary Examples for the Instruction of Trained Transshipment Console Operators, it, of course, made no mention of the essential switch position. But it did discuss what was called the “samespace” phenomena.
The manual warned against firing a transshipment item nearer than twenty-five thousand miles.
Jonnie had hoped he could somehow lay a tactical nuclear weapon inside each of those major war vessels and get rid of them.
The “samespace” phenomena informed them that space “considered itself ” identical on the principle of nearness. By a law of squares, the farther another point in space was away, the more “different” it was from the point of origin. Total difference did not occur until one reached a point approximately twenty-five thousand miles away.
Teleportation motors used this to run and they were quite different from transshipment functions. A motor ran on the principle that “samespace” resisted distortion heavily. The shorter the distance, the more the distortion. Thus the motor thrived on the refusal of space to distort. But here one was not moving an object; one was moving merely the position of the motor housing. You could even run a dozen motors in the same room and though they would cross-distort, they would function.
But to move an object cleanly, without destruction of it or harm to the transshipment rig, one had to have two spaces to coincide with each other, and space would not do that so long as it “considered itself” “samespace.” You would just get a mangled mess.
It was all quite obtuse, and Jonnie did not feel well. Every time he leaned over, he felt dizzy. Dr. Allen came out and insisted he take some more of this sulfa.
“We can’t bomb the ships with this,” said Jonnie. “And if we bomb their home planets with this rig, the attacking force won’t find out about it for months. They’re all just reaction drives and they’re months from home.” He sighed. “This rig won’t serve us offensively!”
The rig worked. They knew that because they had just proven it. They had taken a gyro-mounted camera from drone spares. It was the type of picture-regulating device which a drone used to look for things and it moved any kind of a recorder around through any degrees of a sphere according to how you set it. You could put any picto-recorder in it and they had done just that.
The rig could “cast” an object out and bring it back or it could “cast” one out and leave it. You moved “this space” out there and brought it back in order to just send out an object and recover it. Or you moved “this space” out to the coordinates of “that space” and “that space” now would hold the object and you brought “this space” back empty. Actually nothing moved through space at all. But “this space” and “that space” were made to coincide.
They had put a picto-recorder in the gyro-mounted camera and sent it to the moon’s surface, an easy one since the moon was up and in their line of sight. They had gotten back some very nice pictures of glaringly bright craters.
They had then “cast” the picto-recorder out to Mars, of which they had the path and coordinates, and had just looked at a huge valley that could be imagined to have a river in it.
The rig worked. They had had no doubts of that. But they weren’t here to take pretty pictures. They could hear the mutter from the nearby ops room and they knew their friends were being hammered mercilessly. There must be something they could do with this rig.
And it didn’t help to feel lightheaded and dizzy.
One might threaten the invaders by saying their planets would be destroyed, but more than likely, they would just attack this place again.
Suddenly the strung intercom from ops buzzed. Stormalong’s voice: “You better hold up firing. We have an unknown vessel about four hundred miles up and to the north. Stand by. Will advise.”
At the end of the line, Stormalong took his finger off the intercom and started to put the gun trace that had just come in through his playback resolver to get a picture from it.
His communicator, a young Buddhist woman on this shift, touched his shoulder. “Sir,” she said in Psychlo, “I’ve got a message on the battle line I can’t make out. It’s in a monotone but it sounds sort of like the language I hear you and Sir Robert use to each other. I’ve got the recording of it, sir.”
Stormalong didn’t pay much attention. He was pulling the paper transfer out of the trace resolver. “Play it,” he said.
“‘My vessel is not armed. You may train guns on it or on me. . . .’”
Stormalong blinked. English? A funny kind of machine English?
He had the picture out of the resolver now. He looked at it, grabbed the recorder, and raced out to the console.
Jonnie and Angus looked up in alarm.
“No, no,” said Stormalong. “I think it’s all right. Look!”
He put the picture in front of them urgently. It was a ship shaped like a ball with a ring around it. “Remember the ship I ran into that wasn’t there? And the old woman on the Scottish coast? This is the same ship!” He looked at them demandingly. “Do I let it through?”
“Might be a trick,” said Angus.
“Any way you can be sure?” said Jonnie. “You know, that it’s not a different ship?”
The Buddhist had followed Stormalong with a cable mike. He grabbed it away from her. “Hello. Hello up there. Do you read me?”
A metallic, monotone, “Yes.”
“What did the old woman serve you?” demanded Stormalong.
The monotone, metallic voice, “Yarb tea.”
Stormalong grinned. “Land in the open field north of this place where guns can be trained on you. Leave your ship by yourself and come unarmed. You will be met by sentries.”
Metallic voice, “Very good. Safe conduct accepted.”
Stormalong sent the needful orders to the guns and guards outside.
He played Jonnie the whole message.
“Who is this guy?” asked Angus. He spoke for them all.
2
The small gray man was escorted into the pagoda area by two polite but alert Scottish guards. He was about as high as Jonnie’s shoulder. He was dressed in a neat gray suit. He looked like a human being except that his skin was gray.
Angus looked at him. “That’s a Scottish-knit sweater,” said Angus suspiciously.
“I know, I know,” said the small gray man through his English speaking vocoder. “I am very sorry that we have no time for social amenities. We must conduct our business right now and rapidly!”
One of the guards said, “He has a white flashing light blinking on and off on top of his ship.”
Sir Robert’s communicator, the boy named Quong, whispered to Sir Robert, “He has a radio signal going on the battle frequency that is saying, ‘Temporary local safe conduct.’” He said it, of course, in Psychlo.
The small gray man must have had very sharp ears for he promptly said, “Oh! You speak Psychlo!” He was speaking it and he took off the vocoder and put it in his pocket, saying, “We can dispense with this then. They are sometimes inaccurate—they misword critical clauses that lead to disputes.”
As he did this and before they could stop him he took a quick step up on the pedestal before the open console and looked in. “Ah! A standard transshipment console, I see. You have only one.”
Jonnie felt they were being criticized in some way. “We can build others.” He meant it to mean, don’t try to steal this one for we can replace it fast enough.
But the small gray man positively beamed with joy. He stepped down and looked quickly about. “We really must hurry. Is there an authorized representative of the planetary government here?”
“That would be Sir Robert,” said Jonnie, indicating him.
“Do you have the power to sign on behalf of your government?” asked the small gray man, crisply.
There was a delay. Sir Robert took his communicator out of their hearing and was quickly in communication with chief of Clanfearghus in embattled Edinburgh. They were going through their communicators in Pali. Chief of Clanfearghus said he didn’t see why not since they were the original government and there was no other.
The small gray man called over, “Record his brief statement in clear, if you please. We must have nothing irregular. Nothing that won’t stand up in court or litigation.”
They didn’t like to put it out on the air so chief of Clanfearghus said it in the Gaelic language and they recorded it.
The small gray man was all business. He took the recording and said, “Do you have any money? Galactic credits, I mean.”
Well, usually one or another of them had Galactic credits they had taken off dead Psychlos as souvenirs. But Jonnie’s pouch had been ruined and Angus was carrying only his tool kit and Robert the Fox had never bothered to pick any up. But the communicator Quong went tearing around to guards and came back in a moment with a one-hundred-credit bank note the guard said Sir Robert could have, and welcome.
“Oh, dear,” said the small gray man. “We are so rushed I should have been more explicit. Five hundred credits is the minimum amount.”
Jonnie knew where there were probably several hundred thousand of them—in Ker’s baggage! But that was all the way up at Lake Victoria. There were about two million more in a safe but that wasn’t here either.
Quong went tearing around to the pilots. Bull’s-eye! They had been taking them off pilots they had shot down. One had a five-hundred-credit note, six one-hundred-credit notes. . . . Sir Robert could have them, yes indeed.
“Ah, twelve hundred credits!” said the small gray man. He had been making out a card form. “And what is your title?” he asked Sir Robert.
“War Chief of Scotland.”
“Ah, no. Shall we just put down here ‘Duly Authorized and Empowered Signatory.’ And here at the top we will put ‘Provisional Government of the Planet Earth.’ Date . . . Address, Call Number . . . no, we can just leave those as they have no legal value. Please sign here at the bottom.”
Sir Robert signed.
The small gray man meanwhile had extracted a small pad from his pocket. He opened it and wrote “Provisional Government of the Planet Earth” inside the cover. And then he wrote on the top line of the next page: “C1,200” and his initials, and handed it to Sir Robert. “Here is your passbook. Keep it in a safe place and do not lose it.” He shook hands.
The small gray man drew a long sigh. Then he became brisk again. He turned over the lapel of his gray jacket and said something into a button-sized radio.
The guard post outside said into the intercom to them, “The top lights on his ship just went blue.”
Quong said, “His radio signal is saying now, ‘Local conference. Do not interrupt.’”
The small gray man beamed at them, rubbing his hands together in small quick motions. “Now that you are a customer, I can give you advice. And my first advice is act fast!”
He was hauling a book out of his inside pocket. It said Address Book on it in Psychlo. “Cast to these addresses as quickly as possible. We will give the belligerents priority. The first would be Hockner . . . home planet Hockner . . . coordinates . . . coordinates . . . yes: Fountain Garden in front of Imperial Palace. . . . Basic coordinates are . . .” He rattled off a series of numbers and Angus hastily scribbled them down. They were in the same order as Terl’s huge book of planets.
Angus said, suspiciously, “Can you operate a console?”
The small gray man shook his head vigorously. “Oh, dear no. Good heavens, no, much less build one! I just have the addresses!”
Then he noticed that Angus was about to bring the coordinates up to date with a pen and sheets of paper. “Goodness gracious! Don’t you have a coordinate computer? This would take forever by hand! We haven’t any time!”
He lifted the lapel, but before he spoke he looked for permission to Sir Robert. “Can I have one of my crew bring in a computer? I’ll also need the red boxes. Could you send out a guard to escort him in and back out? It won’t explode, and I’m here.”
Sir Robert nodded and the small gray man rattled off something into his lapel radio and a guard raced out. The small gray man waited quite impatiently. But he patted the side of the console housing and beamed. “Quite ornamental. Usually they are so plain, you know.”
A gray-uniformed crew member raced in with the guard and deposited a rather impressive computer in the small gray man’s hands, laid down a stack of what appeared to be red cardboard, and was escorted out.
With a deft, repeated flick of his hand, the small gray man was working a ratchet on the right side of the computer. They could see different keyboards appearing and disappearing. He overshot and came back one.
“Now here is a coordinate computer,” he said, laying it down before Angus. “You feed in the exact firing time on these keys here. It must be the actual moment you will press your firing switch. Then you feed it whether it is just ‘cast’ or ‘cast and recall’ or ‘exchange’ on these buttons here. And then you simply punch in the universe and the eight basic coordinates of time zero on the table on these keys here. Quite simple. You may have this one as a new-accounts gift. I have several. Now let’s see. I imagine we can begin firing by twenty-two hundred, sidereal, base universe.” He looked at his watch. “That is in eight minutes. A cast requires about two minutes. We have thirty casts to do. We will call in the basic civilized nations and omit Psychlo which makes twenty-nine, but we will add Lord Voraz—good gracious, I hope he is not in bed. That will take an hour. Then we will wait three hours and do a ‘cast and recall.’ That will take six minutes each—we will make it easy on them so they won’t arrive upset and cross—which is three hours. So in about seven hours, plus a little organizing time, you should be able to get them here.”
He was quite out of breath. He grabbed a stack of cards that sat on the red stack of cardboard and shoved them at Sir Robert. “Just sign each one at the bottom and I’ll fill in the rest. Let me have them as fast as you sign.”
Sir Robert looked at the form. It was all in Psychlo:
URGENT
Sir Robert studied it a bit too long for the small gray man. “Sign it, sign it,” he said. “Twice. On the last two lines. I will initial and seal it and fill the rest in.”
The small gray man was popping together slabs of cardboard. He would hit them on two diagonal corners and they became a fairly large red box. An unignited smoke pot and flare were on the top of each box and a small gong which would keep sounding.
In a tearing hurry, the small gray man took the first card Sir Robert signed, filled it in with a flurry of entries, initialed it, banged a seal on it, and popped it into the box. “Hockner!” he said to Angus and trotted over to the center of the firing platform, dropped the box, and came back quickly and started to work on the next box.
Jonnie looked at his watch, took the coordinates and marks Angus had drawn out of the computer with a tape, punched them in. “Time!” He punched the firing button.
The first box shimmered an instant and vanished.
“Tolnep!” said the small gray man. “Front steps of their House of Plunder.”
Angus rattled the computer. Jonnie set the console. The small gray man raced over and put the second box on the platform. The moment he was off, Jonnie punched the firing button. That red box vanished.
Two Buddhist communicators saw the drill and relieved the small gray man putting the boxes out on the platform. The small gray man was getting quite out of breath. The boy, Quong, noticed all the cards were the same except for the addresses and helped him fill those in so he just had to initial and seal them and pop them in a box. The small gray man caught up and everything was ready to fire forty minutes before the last one would go.
Panting a bit, the small gray man stood aside and let them get on with it.
Sir Robert said to him, “Are you going to conduct this conference too?”
The small gray man shook his head. “Oh dear, no. I’m just helping out. When they get here, it is all up to you!”
Jonnie and Sir Robert exchanged a look. They had better think of something fast! Six and a half hours from now authorized ministers of twenty-nine races, which apparently made up about five thousand separate planets, would be here!
The small gray man said something into his lapel.
A guard outside intercommed in, “The lights on his ship just changed. The blue one is flashing faster and now they have a big flashing red one going.”
A communicator said to Sir Robert, “The radio message that keeps going out just changed. It is saying ‘Local truce area. Security and safety of your own representatives would be endangered by gunfire, motors, or attack. Keep five hundred miles clear of zone.’”
Sir Robert said, “Can’t you just call a general truce for the planet?”
“Oh, my no. I couldn’t do that. It would be a protest producer—a usurpation of the powers of the state. I am sorry. Your people in other places will just have to hold out.”
Sir Robert went to ops to put messages on the command channel to tell them what was going on. They were encouraged. They reported there was no diminution of the attack’s ferocity. They were holding out, but just barely. For some foolish reason the enemy, per pilot reports, had set ancient ruined London on fire.
Angus had tapes punched now for the bulk of the firings. But the small gray man said he could do the rest for him and then do those necessary for the “fire and recall” after the three-hour wait.
A Chinese engineer and Chief Chong-won had been hanging back but were trying to attract Jonnie’s attention. He saw them and turned the console over to Angus.
“Forgive us,” said Chief Chong-won. “But it is the dam. The water level is dropping and you can now see the tops of the generator intake ports. My engineer here, Fu-ching, says that you won’t have any electricity in another four hours.”
And they had another six and a half to go!
3
Jonnie sent for Thor and some maps, including a copy of the old Psychlo defense map.
While he waited, he watched the small gray man working the computer beside the console. His fingers were flying. The handling of that computer compared to the skill of a very experienced pilot on a console. Then he realized the small gray man wasn’t even looking at the computer keys. His fingers seemed to move in rapid blurs all by themselves. Jonnie thought that there was more to this small gray man than had surfaced so far. Not just his name and identity, for they didn’t know those yet either. But he had some much greater reason to help than he had let on. It was not that Jonnie distrusted him. It was just a feeling Jonnie had that even back of any information the small gray man gave them, there would be much deeper reasons for his presence. He decided that whatever the small gray man might tell them later, he, Jonnie, was going to really get the reasons which underlay all of this. Just a feeling. No, a certainty.
Well, one thing at a time. He had the dam to worry about, for if power failed, that would be the end of all this! And he only had, really, two working hours coming up. Repair a dam that size in two hours? Ow!
The maps came. One was a sketch the Chinese engineers had lately made. They had put the village location in. They had done a sketch map of the lake and aside from the Chinese character notations and numbers, it was all quite nice and comprehensible. They had even taken soundings.
He looked at the defense map and noticed for the first time that it was “copied from the original survey.” And from the Psychlo dates, the original survey was nearly eleven hundred years ago. By means of a glass he read the original dam data.
The original Kariba dam, as modified by the Psychlos when they first took over and installed this defense installation, was shown to be about two thousand feet long. The structure height was about four hundred and twenty feet, backed by a lake one hundred seventy-five miles long and about twenty miles wide at its widest point. A truly big dam. It had even had a road for vehicles running all along the top of it.
Jonnie compared the maps. The original had no place for any village! What was this? Had the planet changed its face?
He grabbed a man-map of the area. The river had been named the Zambesi, about twenty-two hundred miles long and one of the world’s major rivers. It had flowed through Kariba Gorge and here it had been dammed for hydroelectric power, an immense undertaking. The sides of the gorge at this place had been steep too. No place for any village! He compared the maps.
The top of the dam that had been a road, even before the ship hit the lake, had been awash.
Then Jonnie knew what had happened. The floods of the Zambesi, year after year for eleven hundred years, had been silting up this lake.
No wonder the water level had dropped so incredibly fast. The crash must have blown a million tons of silt over the dam. And now there was not enough water flow to replace it so fast, for there wasn’t that much lake! It was now only about one hundred twenty miles long, and the water at the dam itself was only about a thousand feet wide. The rest had been mud.
He said to Chong-won and the Chinese engineer, “This dam had six generator intake ports where the water entered from the lake, fell through the dam, and turned the generators. Right now, I want all six of them closed. The instant they are through firing, in about twenty-five minutes, we’re going to cut all power. Do that, then close the ports. When they need electricity to start firing again we will omit lake defense cable to get rid of its power drain and we will open up only two generator ports. Can you do this?”
“Ah, yes!” Then a repeat. “You want us to shut off all power in about twenty-five minutes, close all generator ports, and about two hours later omit defense cable at the lake and open only two ports to the generators. We will also close all spillways?”
Jonnie nodded. The excess dam water hadn’t ever before gone over the top of this dam. It spilled through spillways under the dam and reentered the river far below. Conserve water. That wouldn’t handle the whole situation but it might help.
Thor was there. “Get Dwight!” Jonnie said.
“He’s in the hospital. Broken arm, bashed up.”
“He was also our best explosives man at the lode,” said Jonnie. “Get him.”
They were still firing at the console, but he could use this time to organize.
Dwight came. He had two black eyes and a plaster cast on his arm. He was limping. But he was grinning like a lighthouse.
Jonnie wasted no time. “Dwight, collect two one-thousand-foot rolls of blast cord, about three one-hundred-pound drums of liquid explosive, three of those port-a-pack drill rigs with a hundred feet of shaft for each, and fuses and things.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Thor. “Blow up the planet?”
Jonnie said, “You, Thor, collect every man here we had with us at the lode and a lot of Chinese.”
Stormalong was there. “Get ready to transport explosives and men across that lake,” Jonnie told him. “The instant they are through with this first hour’s firing, we’ve got to be ready to roll.”
He scribbled a note for a communicator to give to Angus the instant he was finished with firing boxes: “You are going to lose all power for two hours. Inform us when you are through with this first run as we’ll be running motors and blasting. Don’t start firing again until you get an all-clear from us. Communicate with me by mine radio.”
Men were being sent through the passage to the outside. Some of them were veterans from the raid, and hospital cases. Dr. Allen looked on with disapproval, especially at Jonnie. But he said nothing.
Jonnie got outside. It was daylight now, thank heaven. He could see what he was doing. He looked at the dam. Yes, indeed. Silt! There was silt splattered all over the place. What a muddy job this would be. Where the top of the dam had been broken, piles of silt lay there. There was silt all up the cliff sides. Splattered as if with a gigantic paintbrush. Wet silt. One of the biggest dangers here was slipping and sliding.
He had his mine radio on so he could be told when they were done with the first hour’s firing. Men were running dollies out of deep magazines, getting explosives to a plane. Pilots were standing by. Two mine passenger planes were loading personnel. A dozen Chinese raced into the powerhouse equipped with big wrenches: they would need them to move levers and controls frozen in place for a thousand years.
Jonnie walked to the dam edge and looked up the lake.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. He would have thought the plunge through the atmosphere would have destroyed more of it than that.
There was the capital ship, a gigantic wreck, dug sideways into the silt five miles uplake from the dam.
And it was contributing its share to the disaster.
The twisted, charred hulk was blocking fresh water flow to the dam! Above it, a new lake was forming.
He got Dwight. “You pick about three men. Put them on a flying platform. Lay blast cord on the east side of that wreck and blow a new water channel around it. I’ll give you the time to fire the cord. Get it laid and come back to me.”
Dwight rushed off to find his men and more explosives.
Jonnie walked over to a point where he could see the opposite end of the dam. It was a very curved dam, its lake side jutting into the lake like a half-moon. Yes, there sure was water escaping. Because of the shape of the dam, a hard push of concussion against it would cause the ends to thrust much more strongly into the banks. The far end over there was firm enough against the cliff, but the bottom of the dam must have moved. Water was roaring out under that far edge like a gigantic fire hose.
Possibly ancient cracks at the far base had been filled with silt until now. But the blast had torn them open. The only thing that would plug that was about half a million tons of rock dumped upstream from it. And this was no time to be dumping rock with blade scrapers and cranes.
The half-formed plan he had made had been right. He looked at the cliffs on the far side of the gorge. If he blew one of them down to fill the breach, would the concussion also rip out the rest of the dam?
The defense cable also ran along those cliffs. He did not dare sacrifice that too.
Angus’s voice on the mine radio. “First stage of firing is complete. Ready to shut down!”
“Shut down!” said Jonnie into his mine radio. “Powerhouse! Take the power off! Stormalong! Fly them!”
The sizzle of the armor cable vanished. There was a patter of burst shell fragments, dead birds and leaves and they dropped to the ground, no longer held there by the ionization armor.
The planes took off with a blasting roar.
Jonnie had spotted an unused flying platform and he stepped aboard and hit the console. He went streaking out over the dam and lake, heading for the tops of the far cliffs.
Dwight was there. Jonnie eyed the texture of the rock in the cliffs. He estimated the rush and flow of water which must be occurring at this side bottom of the lake. His task was to dump enough rock off these cliffs into the lake and get it carried into that break to plug it. A tricky calculation.
Three holes. He needed to drill three holes, each about a hundred feet deep and each at an exact angle. These would be at the points where the cliff must be sheered off.
He pointed, racing along back of the cliff edge. One, two, three. About two hundred yards uplake from the dam. Down at an angle of about fifteen degrees from the vertical.
Men got the port-a-pack drills in operation. They were usually used to deep-core a vein. But they could drill a fast hole. Fast enough? He only had two hours.
The cable! This section lay closer to the lake than they were drilling. He mustn’t sacrifice it. If left where it was it would get severed by any blast and slide into the lake.
“Stormalong!” yelled Jonnie. The pilot had just climbed out of a mine passenger plane. “What’s the biggest motor we’ve got here now?”
Stormalong looked at the planes. They had brought over four. One was a marine-attack plane. Stormalong pointed at it.
“Get some technicians down to this end of the dam. There’s a cable junction box there according to this old defense map. Get them to unhook it. And then you put a heavy line on that end and fly this whole section of it out of the ground and dump it up there.”
This was right where Stormalong lived. What a crazy idea! To take the unfastened cable end and secure it to a plane and fly the plane southwest up the lake and tear the cable out! He needed no further instructions. He knew the weight of a tenth of a mile of cable might well crash the plane. He’d put a quick release trip on it. He sent technicians racing to disconnect the dam end of it.
Jonnie looked at the drills. There were armored bits and they could stand an awful lot of heat. But they were smoking. How fast could they drill? He looked at his watch and saw how many sections they were down already. This was going to be close!
Up the lake, five miles away, the old mine hand that Dwight had sent and two assistants were sliding and slithering around in the silt beside the battleship wreck. They were sinking almost to their hips. The flying platform they had taken had to be reflown by its operator every few minutes to prevent it from simply sinking out of sight in the ooze.
What a gigantic wreck! No wonder they couldn’t put those down in atmosphere. They must assemble them on that moon, Asart, above Tolnep. Probably they flew the pieces up there section by section. Only intricate calculations of planetary gravity and gravitic force flows would let those things fly at all.
He wondered for a sad moment whether Glencannon’s body was in there somewhere. But even a Mark 32 couldn’t stand up to that internal blast. That ship was really a graveyard. There must be charred chunks of fifteen hundred Tolneps in that twisted, blackened wreck. How long was it? Two thousand feet? Three thousand? Hard to tell from here, so much was buried. But it was sure making a great dam. One would have thought it would have buried itself deeper. Then he saw what really was the case. It had made a sort of crater and it was the crater edge that was restraining the water.
He took a small scope from his pocket to see exactly what the men were doing. Yes, they were doubling up blast cord over the far crater edge and then another one of them was doing the same thing on the near crater edge. They needed no advice.
The drills were screaming through the rock, steam shooting up from their overheated water-coolant jets. Twenty men were rigging a line from the lake water to a mine pump. They were getting more cooling water.
Ow, the silt! It was hard to walk without sliding and nearly all the crews by now were caked with mud.
He looked at his watch. It would be very touch and go. To drill a hundred feet of hole in three hours would be a bit of a feat; they had to do it in about one and a half! They were really leaning on those drills. Four men on each were adding their weight to the handles.
He hoped that flashing signal on the small gray man’s ship would hold good. They had skeletonized their defense force to handle this dam and they were wide open to attack with no cable armor.
His mine radio came alive. It was the party at the wreck calling Dwight. They were ready to fire. Dwight looked over to Jonnie.
With his scope, Jonnie tried to see the generator intake ports in the dam. Were they closed? Muddy, muddy water. He couldn’t see from here. He called the Chinese engineers inside the dam. Chief Chong-won was in there.
“It needs five minutes to close the last port,” the chief’s voice came back. “They’ve got the excess spillway ports closed. I am sorry, Lord Jonnie. I don’t think these levers and wheels have been moved for years.”
“Make it a thousand,” said Jonnie. “How many men have you got in there?”
“Seventy-two,” said the chief.
Good Lord, he had half his force inside that dam.
“You’re doing great. Finish it up and then get everyone out of there. That dam could go, the whole thing, with these blasts.”
“We’ll hurry,” said the chief.
There was a roar and Stormalong took up slack on the defense cable. He was using his plane’s bullhorns. “Ready to rip!” he yelled. “Tell me when everyone is clear!”
The big marine-attack plane was hanging in the air at the dam end. Grapnels had the cable and it was loose from the junction box. Men were scrambling away there.
Jonnie yelled to the men on the port-a-packs. “Stand clear!”
Unwilling to leave their drills, they nevertheless shut them off and went slipping and sliding away from the cliff edge.
Jonnie checked it. They were in the clear all along what must be the cable path. “Let her rip!” he yelled into his mine radio.
In the plane, Stormalong poured it on. The cable, like a gigantic snake, jerking and resisting, began to come out of the ground. It was stalling the plane. Stormalong began to dance the huge ship up and down, yanking at the cable. Foot by foot and yard by yard it worked free of the ground. The plane rose higher and higher, working along the cliff edge.
He had almost half of it out of the ground!
There was a ripping pop.
The cable parted!
Stormalong’s ship catapulted toward the sky, trailing two hundred yards of cable.
He checked the rise. That Stormalong could fly. He took the broken piece up the lake and laid it on the shore. He triggered his quick release and dropped it.
Stormalong came back overhead. Someone in the plane was lowering the grapnels. “Hook me up!” yelled Stormalong through the bullhorn above.
Men went slithering down to the cliff edge. They caught the grapnel and got it securely fastened to the torn cable end.
It could be patched. But all this was taking time and the drill crews weren’t drilling.
They got it fastened again and once more Stormalong was pulling the remaining length from the bed in which it had rested for centuries.
He got it free of the blast area and dropped it.
The men raced back to their drills.
“We’re all finished here!” came Chief Chong-won’s voice on the mine radio.
“Excellent,” said Jonnie. “Now clear every man out of there and tell me when they’re gone, including you!”
He could see them streaming out of the powerhouse and up the far roadway, tiny figures in blue work clothes. At last they were safely away from the dam. “All clear, Lord Jonnie,” said Chief Chong-won.
It wouldn’t stop the drilling. Jonnie signaled Dwight. Dwight gave the crew at the wreck their orders. “Fire in the hole!” yelled Dwight. Jonnie could see them setting fuses. Then they slipped and slithered and plowed through the ooze to their flying platform and boarded it. They had to bodily haul the last one onto it by his collar and fly off with his legs still dangling. The platform went over to a safe area and landed. Jonnie watched the wreck area.
Blowie! Blowie! The sharp cracks of blast cord exploding.
A long line of mud catapulted into the sky. Smoke and spattering goo obscured the wreck for a moment.
A shock wave made the ground tremble. A small roll of water ran down the lake. Twenty-four seconds after the blast the sound of it reached them like a hard buffet with a big hand.
The smoke was clearing away up there. The enormous wreck had not moved but a channel had been cut through the upper and lower crater edges. A trickle of water started through the farther one. Just a trickle?
Jonnie held his breath, eyeing it with a scope, afraid that in their shortness of time they would have to shoot again. “Come on! Come on!” he was saying. “More, more!” He knew water was very erosive and tended to chew and widen its own way. “Come on!”
The farther side was at least two feet higher than the lake at the dam. It should have more push than that!
Right then some object in the way of the flow was worked out by the water. It was a big blast gun. It twisted in the swirl and then at last went tumbling away.
The water burst through the far crater wall. It swirled and surged in the crater, a boiling, frothing churn of discolored mud. Water thrust the upper channel wider. More water burst through.
Now it was working at the nearest ditch the blast cord had dug. It gnawed at obstruction and debris. And then it started through!
A third surge in the upper crater. Pieces were tearing loose. There was a roaring torrent there now. The bowl was filling; it was emptying into the lower lake.
They had gotten the river running again. Jonnie told Dwight to give them a very well done.
The drills were raving and smoking. Jonnie looked at his watch. They only had about twenty minutes left. Where had the time gone? “How many drill sections have you gotten into those holes?” asked Jonnie to Thor.
“Five. That’s seventy-five feet.”
“It will have to be enough. Get those drills out of there. Stormalong!” he barked into his radio. “Start pulling these crews and equipment out of here!”
He could see Chief Chong-won, a speck way over on the far side. He spoke into his mine radio. “Chief, you are going to see one awful flash over here in a few minutes. Wait to make sure the whole dam doesn’t go out, and the instant it’s safe, send a picked crew in there to open two generator ports and get the power back on to the cone cable and pagoda area only. Got it?”
“Yes, Lord Jonnie.”
“And be sure to be under cover for this blast,” added Jonnie.
They had the port-a-packs out and were clattering them in plane holds.
“Dwight!” said Jonnie. “Take those three drums of liquid explosive and pour them in those holes and then set the empty drums on top of them. Fast!”
Dwight pointed with his good arm and got men running. They began to pour a big drum of explosive into each hole. The holes were still so hot, the explosive was almost boiling. It was hard to get it to flow down against the trapped air. The air came bubbling and steaming back up.
Jonnie raced along, stringing blast cord. He put a big loop of it around each place where they would set a drum. The drums would be like bombs with the explosive vapor still in them.
“Fuses!” yelled Dwight.
“We’ve got no time,” shouted Jonnie. “I’m going to set this off with a plane’s guns!”
“What?” gawked Thor.
They had the barrels empty and were putting them in place in the circle of blast cord at each hole. A shot into any one drum would set off the lot.
“Leave me that plane!” Jonnie pointed at a single battle plane they’d brought. “Get the rest of them out of here with all men right now!”
Stormalong started to protest and then started hurrying men into the remaining ships. As their equipment went slamming into the planes, Stormalong yelled over to Jonnie, “Shoot it from way up! This thing is going to skyrocket!”
Jonnie was looking at his watch. They only had nine minutes left.
The planes were taking off, Dwight was being dragged into the last one. Jonnie looked at this setup. All okay.
He rushed to the battle plane and got ready to start it.
There was nobody left in the area.
He took off. He jumped the ship to about two thousand feet. The dam still looked big.
The planes were landing in sandbag abutments on the other side. Stormalong had really gotten across and slammed them down in an awful hurry.
Chief Chong-won and his men were under cover.
“Fire in the hole!” said Jonnie on his mine radio.
He flipped the guns to “Flame,” “Narrow,” and “Maximum.” He checked his security belt.
Now for some nice gunnery. At this moment it all looked pretty peaceful down there. The blackened wreck was spilling flotsam as water went through its broken girders. The river was flowing right up to the dam lake.
But the increased water was spilling under the dam below the lake and it would be tearing that hole wider and wider.
Jonnie closed all windows with a flick of switches, made sure doors were all secure. Should he back up to three thousand? No. This was the best range. A battle plane could take a lot. But he had never heard of anybody setting off a hundred fifty gallons of liquid explosive before. Plus a thousand feet of number five blast cord.
He put his sights carefully on the center barrel. He pushed the gun trip.
There was a flash across the whole sky before him. A curtain of green fire three thousand feet high.
Crash!
The recoil hit him and the plane went spinning skyward like a thrown toy.
The yank of the security belt was like a blow. It knocked the wind out of him.
Three seconds later he found he was upside down. He punched the console. The plane’s balance motors caught up and righted it. He was flying backward.
The whine of engines fought against the wrong direction.
The plane steadied. Somebody would have to replace the windscreen. It had a diagonal crack in it.
And then he saw the cliff. The smoke had cleared. And the whole cliff front was sliding down toward the lake in slow, slow motion.
Half a million cubic yards of rock, moving down.
A lot of it was apparently still in one piece. But that was an illusion. It was a clean slice of cliff, knifed off neatly. But inside it the rock was cracked and shattered and just before it hit the water it lost shape and tumbled in fragments. It had looked at first like it hadn’t left the bank. But there had been distance. Some of it struck nearly at the center of the lake.
He watched the dam. Would it, too, crumble in slow motion and this whole lake go roaring down the gorge? He had set it up so the shock wave would go into the air, not down and through the ground. It had gone into the air, all right; witness what happened to his plane.
The first wave hit the dam and a splatter of water soared a hundred feet above the dam top. Had he lost too much water there? No, that was just spray.
Was the dam holding?
He could not tell whether the underwater currents were carrying the rock into the low hole. He darted the plane sideways. Water was still roaring out under the dam. He watched.
Was it his imagination that it was lessening?
His attention was yanked off it by blue figures racing down to the powerhouse. They certainly had not waited!
He looked at his watch. He only had two minutes to get this plane out of the air.
With a pound on the console keys Jonnie lanced the plane down to an empty abutment. He killed its motor. He had to make sure it was off—his ears were ringing.
Thirty-three seconds left to go. That was cutting it close!
He went through the underground passage into the cone. He looked at the pagoda. Not even a tile had moved in that blast.
Angus was at the console. The small gray man at the computer. Angus waved and shouted, “Power’s on! We’re firing!”
4
Somebody else had been busy in the last two hours. A different music was playing. It was very noble and dignified. It sounded vaguely familiar to Jonnie and then he remembered that a cadet had found a pile of what he called “records,” big things: if you ran a rose thorn held in a paper box around an endless circular groove and put your ear close, it sounded like twenty or thirty instruments playing; the ancient label on the record, mostly faded out, said the name of the piece was The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. Lohengrin. This music was much like that but deeper, fuller, quite impressive! Jonnie suspected the small gray man had had a hand in that. Something from his ship? Music for the delegates to arrive by, of course.
And something else that must be from the small gray man’s ship: there was a screen, meshed so you could see through it, all around the firing platform, and Dr. Allen was finishing putting it up. “Disease control,” he said cryptically as Jonnie passed by.
Sweaty Chinese engineers crawled out of a duct hole with cheery faces. They had air circulating in and out now. The smoke had already cleared away. A good thing, thought Jonnie. A lot of different atmospheres would momentarily be whiffing across the platform at the instant of coincidence of spaces and during recoil especially.
And the mobs of Chinese refugees from the village had changed, too. They may have lost their village but they had saved their possessions and these had been scattered about. Now the untidy bundles had vanished. Children and dogs were quiet down in the rifle pits and parents and others that had no immediate duties were standing about. They had on what must be their best clothes.
An honor guard came out of a bunker and finished neatening themselves up with a tug here and a buckle there. Six of them, different nationalities, all in their best uniforms. No weapons, but the shafts of pennons. An aged Chinese gentleman—no, a Buddhist communicator dressed to look like a Chinese, wearing a silk robe with designs on it and a small cap—was taking position at the head of the honor guard. Of course, somebody who spoke Psychlo to greet the arrivals, yet who looked like a dignitary.
It would be three or four minutes until the first one appeared and Jonnie walked toward the ops room. He didn’t get in. The boy, Quong, sprinted out, going somewhere fast, and Sir Robert popped out of the door and called after him, “And tell Stormalong to bring that other recognition book, too!” The boy hardly checked his pace, nodding in full run.
Beyond Sir Robert the ops room was boiling with sound and movement as people worked.
Jonnie opened his mouth to ask how it was going. But Sir Robert answered before he could speak. Sir Robert shook his head bleakly. “They’re using a new kind of bomb. The guns sometimes don’t explode it. And the idiots are burning deserted cities! Our drones are still running. Why would they want to burn an empty place that used to be called ‘San Francisco’? The last drone shot we had of it, there were just two bears walking down the street. We’re dealing wi’ daft imbeciles!”
Jonnie made to go in past him and Sir Robert shook his head again. “You can’t do anything more than we’re doing. Have you thought what we’re going to tell these emissaries?”
“No idea,” said Jonnie. “Shouldn’t we get Clanchief Fearghus down here?”
“Naw, naw,” said Sir Robert. “No e’en a wee chonce! Edinburgh is gang up in flames!”
Jonnie felt a contraction of his heart. “Any news of Chrissie?”
“They’d a’ be doon in the shelters. Dunneldeen is giving them a’ the air cover he can.”
Stormalong raced in with the book.
Sir Robert took a look at Jonnie. “Go get yersel’ cleaned up. And think of something to tell these arrivals!” He shooed Jonnie off toward his room and vanished into ops. He closed the door behind him so the frantic sounds wouldn’t come into the platform area.
Jonnie walked on toward his room. Just as he was about to duck into the passage the humming of the wires, which had been going on underneath the music, made itself known by stopping. There was a space of time and then a slight recoil.
The Hockner emissary was on the platform. Noseless, holding a monocle on a stick, he was dressed in shimmering robes. He had a gold-colored hamper beside him.
A bell on the screen pinged. The screen top edge lit with a purple glow all around. The Hockner picked up the hamper, looked about through his monocle and minced off the platform. The honor guard saluted and dipped pennons.
He halted well clear of the disease-control fence. A messenger took the hamper from him. The Buddhist in Chinese clothes bowed.
In a supercilious tone of voice, the Hockner emissary said in Psychlo, “I am Blan Jetso, Extraordinary Minister Plenipotentiary of the Emperor of the Hockners, long may he reign! I am empowered to negotiate and arrange final and binding amendments to agreements or treaties in all things political or military. My person is inviolate and any molestation cancels any agreements. Any effort to hold me hostage shall be in vain, for I shall not be redeemed by my government. At the threat of any torture or extortion, you are warned that I shall commit suicide instantly in ways unknown to you. I am not the carrier of any disease nor weapon. Long live the Hockner Empire! And how are you today?”
The communicator dressed as a Chinese bowed and made a brief, fast speech of welcome, very pat, told him the conference would begin in about three hours and led him off to a private apartment where he could rest or refresh himself.
Jonnie had an idea these arrivals would all be about the same, different only as to races, persons and clothes.
He was trying to think of something to tell the emissaries. It was a bit of a shock for Sir Robert to infer that it was up to him. When that grizzled old veteran didn’t have any ideas— But then he must be terribly distressed over Edinburgh. So was Jonnie.
5
Jonnie ducked under the door beam to enter the passage to his room and a wave of dizziness hit him. So far, in trying to handle the dam, he had carried himself along on willpower and he had pushed the feeling aside. But now, with worry about Edinburgh and Chrissie,he felt he was not in very good condition to handle much of anything. He had taken quite a battering these last couple of days.
He was not prepared for what he found in the passage just outside his room. There were four people there and they were working on things he couldn’t quite make out. They had low benches, they were sitting on the floor, their heads were down, and their hands were flying.
Mr. Tsung sensed his presence and bobbed up from the floor. He bowed. “Lord Jonnie, meet my wife!”
The second person, a gray-haired Chinese woman with a kindly face, bobbed up, smiled, bowed. Jonnie bowed. It made his head feel bad. The woman popped down and went right back to work.
“Meet my daughter,” said Mr. Tsung.
The third person bobbed up, bowed. The daughter was a very beautiful Chinese girl, very delicate. She wore a flower in her hair. Jonnie bowed. It made his head feel worse. The girl sat down and went frantically back to work.
“Meet my son-in-law,” said Mr. Tsung.
A good-looking Chinese bobbed up from his bench with a clatter. He bowed. He was in the blue work uniform the mechanics wore. Jonnie bowed very slightly so the room wouldn’t spin. The young man popped down and sparks again flew from his tools.
Jonnie looked at them. They were working dedicatedly and with near ferocity on whatever they were doing. Jonnie felt a pang of sorrow. If this conference failed, and if they lost, what suffering would await these decent people! These and the rest of the thirty-five thousand that were all that remained of the human race. He could not face the prospect of letting them down.
He went into his room. Somebody else had used those two hours. Angus, probably, and an electrician. A rack with three viewscreens now stood against the wall beyond the foot of his bed. A button camera had been placed in the ops room for one screen, and he could see the huddled groups there, faces strained as they handled microphones and drone pictures and the operations board. Another button camera was trained on the conference room to broadcast to the second screen—the conference room was empty. The third button camera was on the platform and console and served the third screen.
Even as he looked, the Tolnep emissary arrived. He was in shimmering green; even his cap was green. But he had on dirty blue boots. Huge glasses hid his eyes. He carried a sort of scepter with a large knob at the top and a green hamper on green wheels for his food and supplies. A reptilian creature although he walked upright and had a face and arms and legs. A genetic line from dinosaurs that had become miniature and sentient?
He made his speech much like the Hockner, accepted the reply with an evil smile, folded his shimmering green cloak about his steel-hard body, and was led away to a private apartment. He looked like trouble.
Jonnie was about to throw himself down on the bed when he was suddenly obstructed. Mr. Tsung had followed him in. “No, no!” said Mr. Tsung. “Bath!”
Two Chinese had followed Mr. Tsung in. They had a steaming bath sitting on a mine dolly which they pushed to an empty spot on the floor before vanishing.
“I happen to be just about exhausted,” said Jonnie in protest. “I will just wash my face—”
Mr. Tsung slid around in front of him with a mirror. “Look!” demanded Mr. Tsung.
Jonnie looked. Mud. Explosive stains. The black silk sling he had been wearing was a tatter of light tan. Silt was all through his beard and hair. He looked down and saw that somewhere he must have walked up to his waist in ooze. He looked down at his hands and he could not even tell the color of his skin. He looked like something no dog would have dragged out of the village garbage dump.
“You win,” said Jonnie and wearily began to get out of his clothes. Mr. Tsung had a big mine bucket and as each garment was removed he dropped it with some distaste in the bucket, even the helmet and boots and guns.
Jonnie climbed into the bath. It was not long enough to stretch out his legs, but the water came up to his chest. He had never had a hot bath before, only rivers and cold mountain streams. He felt the exhaustion oozing out of him. Indeed, he found with some surprise, there was much you could say in favor of hot baths!
Avoiding the bandage on the arm, Mr. Tsung scrubbed industriously with a lathering soap and a brush. Suddenly he stopped work and there was a whispered consultation back of Jonnie. Then a touch on the top of each of Jonnie’s shoulders. Another consultation and one of Jonnie’s arms was held out by Mr. Tsung and a piece of string was stretched down the length of it.
Jonnie was momentarily horrified to realize the daughter was behind him and he was naked in a tub! He turned his head but the daughter was gone. Mr. Tsung scrubbed on. He washed Jonnie’s hair and beard.
Twice more the bath was stopped. Once to put a string around his chest. The second time to put a string down the side of his leg.
Eventually Mr. Tsung dried his hair and beard with a towel and then wrapped a bigger one around Jonnie as he stepped out of the tub. He dried Jonnie off, having to jump up a bit to really get the shoulders now that Jonnie was standing. He put Jonnie in a soft, blue robe and only then permitted him to lie down on the bed.
Thankful to stretch out at last, avoiding even looking at the screens, Jonnie was interrupted again.
It was Dr. MacKendrick and Dr. Allen. The robe was loose and they got his arm out. Dr. Allen cut off the bandage, cleaned the area with alcohol that stung the nose—probably whiskey of not too good a distillation—poured some white powder in the wound and then made him eat some of it. More sulfa! Mr. Tsung was there with a bowl of soup while Dr. Allen put on a fresh bandage.
Then the two doctors stood back. Jonnie, wise in such medical manners, began to suspect they were up to something. They had that false joviality doctors assume just before they take you by surprise and do something gruesome.
“I always thought,” said Dr. Allen, “that Dunneldeen and Stormalong were wild. But I was out there when you blew that cliff in. You are the wild one, Jonnie Tyler. Do you always use a battle plane to light fuses?”
Jonnie was about to inform him somewhat austerely that there had been no time at all to rig fuses when Dr. MacKendrick moved closer.
“I suppose,” said MacKendrick, “it just seemed more natural to him.” A remark calculated to distract.
And he took the long needle he had been holding behind him and, seizing Jonnie’s wrist, slid two inches of steel into a vein and pumped a full syringe of something into Jonnie’s blood.
“Ow!” said Jonnie. “That wasn’t fair! You know I don’t like your needles.” The stuff burned like fire in his vein.
“That’s for your dizziness,” said Dr. MacKendrick, smugly cleaning the needle. “It’s some stuff we found called ‘B complex.’ The venom and the relaxant and this sulfa all rob the system of it. You’ll feel much better very shortly.”
“I’ve got enough to do,” said Jonnie, a bit cross, “without being shot full of holes.”
Dr. Allen laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s just it,” he said. “You’ve got far, far too much to worry about and to do. You’ve got to learn to let others help you. Let them contribute as well. You do splendidly. Let others help too!” He gave Jonnie a pat on the shoulder and they left.
The soup had made his stomach feel better. After a bit he raised his head and bobbed it. He wasn’t as dizzy as he had been.
Another couple of emissaries had arrived on the platform. The ops room looked frantic. He was worried about this coming conference. Jonnie thought he had lain around long enough.
“Tsung!” he called. “Please get out my best buckskin suit.” Yes, he would let someone else contribute. Mr. Tsung could dig up his buckskins.
The result was totally unexpected. Mr. Tsung flashed in, drew himself up to his full five feet, and said, “No!” Then he struggled to find more words from his meager store of English. “They lords!” He couldn’t say what he wanted to say.
An amazed Jonnie saw Mr. Tsung tear out of the room and come back in a moment with a coordinator for the Chinese, one who spoke Mandarin. Mr. Tsung was blazing away at the coordinator with every shot in his magazine. Mr. Tsung died down. The coordinator opened his mouth to speak. Mr. Tsung thought of something else, battered the coordinator with it, and only then stood back with a “so there” expression and put his hands in his sleeves and bowed.
The coordinator, a black-bearded Scot, took a deep breath. “You’re maybe not going to like this, MacTyler, but you have gotten yourself a diplomatic manager. I know these Chinese, and when they get their minds set on something, they’re worse than my old woman!”
Jonnie had lain back. He addressed the ceiling. “And what is wrong with my simply asking for my best buckskin suit to be laid out?”
“Everything,” said the coordinator. “Just everything.” He sighed and began to explain: “Mr. Tsung is a descendant of a family that served as chamberlains to the Ch’ing dynasty—those who ruled China from the man-date 1644 a.d. to about 1911. Maybe eleven hundred years ago. That was the last dynasty before China became a People’s Republic. The court and emperors were not Chinese; they were a race called ‘Manchus.’ And they needed a lot of advice. Tsung says his family served them well, but times changed, and because they had served the Manchus, his ancestors were exiled to Tibet. It was the western powers that overthrew the Manchus, Tsung says, not his family’s advice. So Mr. Tsung here is really a ‘Mandarin of the Blue Button’ according to ancestry, a lord of the court.
“He says all the family records and scrolls are with the Chinese university library you put in a vault someplace.”
“Russia,” said Jonnie. “They’re in the Russian base, though Lord knows how it’s holding out right now!”
“Well, good,” said the Scot. “He says he could read you some of it but he doesn’t have it here. But his family always kept up on its background, expecting someday a dynasty they could serve would come back into power. They have long memories, these Chinese—imagine waiting eleven hundred years to get back a job!”
Mr. Tsung detected this was wandering off track and he nudged the coordinator’s arm and made gestures that clearly said, tell him, tell him!
The coordinator sighed. He was not sure how Jonnie would take this. “He says you are ‘Lord Jonnie’ and”—he got it all out in a rush—“you can’t go around looking like a barbarian!”
If Jonnie had not been so worried about other things he would have laughed.
The coordinator was relieved that this had not been received as criticism. He continued. “He says he knew there would be a diplomatic conference and that a lot of lords would be arriving and that they would be very uppish and snobbish and fancy. And it’s true enough. I’ve seen them coming in on the platform. Jeweled breathe-masks, glittering cloth, ornaments—one even had a jeweled monocle. Pretty fancy dudes!”
He then swallowed and said the rest in a rush, “And if you go out there and talk to them in hides, they’ll think you’re just a barbarian and won’t listen to you. He says if you look and act,” he swallowed again, “like an uncouth savage, they’ll hold you in contempt.” He stopped, relieved to have gotten through it. “And that’s what he was trying to tell you. Don’t be upset with him. I could add that quite in addition to a genuine affection for you, about thirty-five thousand lives—no, less than that now, but a lot—depend on this conference. Otherwise I wouldn’t have translated it for him because to me, MacTyler, ye’re no barbarian!”
Jonnie thought all he would have to do was reassure Mr. Tsung he would be polite and not slap anybody and that would be that. But not so!
Mr. Tsung made the coordinator stand right there and translate everything he said exactly with no changes. Mr. Tsung hunkered down close to the side of the bed and started talking. The coordinator translated at each pause.
“‘It is one thing,’” translated the Scot, “‘to be a mighty warrior . . . but although you have won every battle . . . and driven the enemy to rout . . . from a field of slaughter . . . the entire war . . . can be lost . . . at the conference table!’”
Jonnie digested that. They actually hadn’t won the war yet by a long ways, but even if they did, they could lose the whole thing in that conference room. He had known that, but he was impressed. Mr. Tsung had obviously sought this job, not as somebody who cleaned up a room, but as an advisor. Well, heavens knew he needed advice. He had come up with no ideas.
“‘Your attitude,’” the coordinator continued to translate as the little Mr. Tsung spoke on, “‘. . . must be calculated to impress. . . . A lord is used to handling inferiors. . . . He is impressed by being handled as an inferior. . . . Be haughty. . . . Do not be polite. . . . Be cold and disdainful. . . . Be distant and aloof.’
“Say, this old man is really wringing out my Mandarin. That’s real court Chinese he’s talking!”
Mr. Tsung motioned him not to add his own comments.
“‘Do not,’” the Scot obediently translated, “‘agree or seem to agree to anything. . . . Your words can be tricked into seeming to agree . . . so avoid the word yes. . . . They will make preposterous demands they know they cannot attain . . . just to gain bargaining points . . . so you in return should advance to them . . . impossible demands even if you feel they won’t agree, and who knows, you might win them! . . . All diplomacy is a matter of compromise. . . . There is a middle ground between the two opposite poles of impossible demands . . . which will become the eventual treaty or agreement. . . . Always work for the most advantageous position you can get.’”
The Scot paused. “He wants to know if you’ve got all that.”
“Yes, sir!” said Jonnie. “And welcome.”
He was feeling this was useful even though it didn’t give him the idea he needed.
“And now,” said the coordinator, “he wants to give you lessons in deportment. Watch him.”
Well, they were dealing with creatures from many another race, and their ideas of deportment and those from ancient imperial China might not agree at all. So Jonnie felt a bit tolerant as he watched the Chinese. But almost immediately he felt he was wrong. These manners fitted any race!
How to stand. Feet apart, tall, leaning slightly back. Firmly fixed to the earth. Position dominant. Got that? Then do it!
How to hold a scepter or wand. One hand on grip end, other end laid in the other palm. Grip both ends to show control. Tap one end into palm to hint the small possibility of punishment when one might wish to seem a bit offended. Wave idly in air to show that the other’s argument was of no consequence and was like the wind. Got that? Here is a wand. Do it! Not quite right. Be easy, lordly. Now do them all again.
Walk as though not caring what lies before you. Suggest power. Steady, unstoppable. Like this. Got it? Do it!
For half an hour Mr. Tsung worked on Jonnie. And Jonnie realized that his own walk was like that of a panther whereas for this conference it must be stately.
Mr. Tsung made him go through the whole lesson and then the postures and walks again before he was satisfied. Jonnie, who had always had a sinking feeling about being a diplomat, began to feel a bit more confident. There was an art to this thing. It was like hunting game but a different kind of game. It was like a battle but a different kind of battle.
He thought he was all through. He could see on the screen that more and more emissaries were arriving. But Mr. Tsung said they would all have to present their credentials at the first meeting in the conference room and that there was lots and lots of time. Had Jonnie thought of a strategy? A strategy was very necessary. How to approach the diplomatic battle, what one intended to use to maneuver. Well, Jonnie could think about it. It was like a battle but your infantry and cavalry were ideas and words. Maneuvered wrongly, it meant defeat!
Meanwhile, they had to handle this other matter, and leaving Jonnie a bit mystified, Mr. Tsung went out in the hall.
Seeing that for the moment Jonnie wasn’t busy, Chief Chong-won slid in the door. He was beaming and bobbing his head. “The dam!” And he made a tight grip with both fists and gestured with his hands. “The hole. The outflow is decreasing. The level of the lake is rising.” He bobbed his head vigorously, bowed deeply, and vanished.
Jonnie thought, well that was one thing that had gone right. The power wouldn’t go off and leave some diplomat parked in some wrong space! All he had to worry about now was a burning planet, the fate of its people and this conference.
That shot had worked. He wasn’t dizzy.
6
The “other matter” turned out to be a haircut. The daughter came in and sat him in a chair facing the viewscreens and got to work with a small pair of scissors and a comb. The idea was rather novel to Jonnie—he usually just hacked his hair off with a knife when it got too long.
She seemed to be very practiced and expert and no doubt took care of the tonsorial requirements of many, for she just sailed in with her scissors moving so fast they sounded like an ore belt running at high speed, clip, clip, clip.
So diplomacy was like a battle, Jonnie was thinking. Watching these lords arrive one could see that they practically oozed authority and power. The visitors attacking Earth were almost local small fry, controlling at the most a few dozen planets. Some of those arriving, he knew from earlier readings, were from other universes and controlled hundreds of planets in just one governmental sphere. And they were very arrogant, very sure of themselves. Whatever their physical form, there was no doubt that they were ministers plenipotentiary to powerful heads of state. What wealth and striking power they represented! Behind them were collective populations numbering trillions in just one state alone. They were the veterans and victors of hundreds of such conferences. Yes, a conference was a battle, and an even more important one than a war.
And what chance did he and Sir Robert have against these experienced diplomats? They were both warriors, not glib, smooth, cunning courtiers with a thousand parliamentary tricks up their sleeves. With no guns or battalions, but with only his wits and the tips Mr. Tsung had given him, he felt quite outnumbered. And so far, he had no strategy at all.
The girl had a small mirror she was holding up so he could see. She had cut his hair to collar height in back and combed and rolled it at the bottom. It looked kind of like a helmet he had seen with a back neck guard. And the hair was shiny. His beard and mustache looked very precise, much shorter. He hardly knew himself—had she seen some old paintings of men with beards and mustaches cut like this? Indeed she had—there was an ancient man-book, English, open on the bed to a picture of somebody named Sir Francis Drake that had defeated somebody called the Spaniards long, long ago.
His attention was attracted by something and he took the mirror from her. His neck! The scars had been quite faint for they were really callouses. And they were gone.
He had to look very hard to see the remains of the Brigante grenade scar on his cheek. That would probably vanish too.
Somehow he felt freed with the collar scars gone. He understood the irony of it and would have smiled but his attention was pulled to the ops room screen. The sound relay had been off and he gave the girl back the mirror and hit the button.
“. . . can’t think what they’re up to!” Stormalong was saying as he angrily finished pulling another picture out of the drone resolver. “I’ve lost count!”
“Fifteen,” said somebody else.
“Look at this! A spray of fire bombs going down into this deserted . . .” He looked at a map. “Detroit! Why set Detroit on fire? There’s been nobody in Detroit for over a thousand years! Are they trying to pull defenses over to that continent? They’re insane.” He threw the picture down. “I’m not providing any air cover for a bunch of ruins! What’s the latest from Edinburgh?”
“Antiaircraft still replying,” said someone at the ops board. “Smoke interfering with visual firing. Dunneldeen just shot down his sixteenth Hawvin strafing plane.”
Jonnie touched the button to “sound off.” He felt an impatience taking hold of him. These diplomats coming in one by one . . . it was too slow!
The coordinator had come in with Mr. Tsung, who was holding a lot of things in his arms. It was obvious that Jonnie was under strain. Mr. Tsung said something in his singsong voice. The coordinator said, “Mr. Tsung reminds you that even a lost battle can be redeemed at a conference table, to be patient and use skill.”
Mr. Tsung had other things now. He took the haircut cloth off Jonnie and showed him a tunic.
It was a very plain garment at first glance. It was cut from shimmering black silk; it had a stand-up collar. It was supposed to be a tight form fit. But it was the silver-colored buttons that attracted Jonnie’s attention.
He knew what they were. He had once remarked to Ker that it was surprising to see such pretty metal on a Psychlo emergency switch. It looked like silver at first glance, but the least amount of light striking it made it glow in rainbow colors. Ker had said, no, it wasn’t used for emergency switches because it was pretty. It was used because it was hard. It was a one-molecule-thick metal spray of an iridium alloy, and no matter how many claw points hit it, it wouldn’t wear off. And when you were in a dark mine with little light, the emergency button was visible because it looked like it flashed in colors. He knew what the son-in-law had been doing—plating buttons. Enough to blind you!
Mr. Tsung had him put it and the black silk pants on and buttoned the tunic all up—iridium buttons every couple of inches down the front.
Then Mr. Tsung made him put on a pair of boots. They were Chinko boots, but they had plated them with iridium alloy.
A belt was fastened around him, a wide one, and it was also plated. All except the buckle. And that was his old gold-colored U.S. Air Force buckle, shined until it gleamed. He remembered thinking once in the cage he might be the last surviving member of a long-gone force. A strange thing to think. But right now it sort of cheered him up.
He had thought he was getting dressed and was a bit dismayed to find that Mr. Tsung did not like a pucker on the shoulder and a certain gather in the tunic back and took it all off him and sent them back.
Mr. Tsung had something else now. It was his twisted knobkerrie with the carved figures. But they had plated it with iridium. It flashed like a length of flame. He knew he couldn’t use it that way, but he was glad not to be going into that conference totally without a weapon.
Then the son-in-law came in. He was carrying a helmet. Basically it was just a Russian helmet they had smoothed down. But what had they done to it? The chin strap was plated with iridium alloy. So was the whole helmet. But what was this? The son-in-law turned it, a bit proudly, so Jonnie could see what was on the front.
How had they done this? Then he saw that the son-in-law was holding the paper patterns he had laid down on the helmet front and sides, one after the other, and sprayed through the open holes with different metal sprays.
It was a dragon.
And what a dragon!
Gold wings on the side of the helmet, clawed paws that seemed to grip the lower helmet edge, scales and spikes from the spine edged in blue, a ferocious face with what appeared to be real rubies for flaming eyes, white fangs in a scarlet mouth. Ferocious. And a round, whitish ball in its scarlet, otherwise gaping, mouth.
It looked three-dimensional. It was similar to the dragon at the console and the clay dragons lying on the building pile except for this big white ball in its mouth.
At first Jonnie felt it was far too fancy. And just then another emissary arrived on the platform wearing a towering gold crown. This was far less fancy than that. But still . . .
Jonnie looked at it. It was a bit different from the other dragons. “Very beautiful,” said Jonnie, so the coordinator could tell the son-in-law.
They were fixing his clothes. It wasn’t time yet by a long way. Jonnie looked at the helmet. Via the coordinator he said to Mr. Tsung, “Tell me about this dragon.”
Mr. Tsung tossed it off and via the coordinator told Jonnie that the throne of China had been called the “Dragon Throne.” “Lung p’ao” or “Chi-fu” patterns or robes were court dress. It was an imperial . . .
Jonnie knew all that. “Tell him to tell me about this dragon. It’s different.”
Mr. Tsung sighed. There were a lot of other things, far more important, that he should be telling Lord Jonnie, and he didn’t think it was very applicable just now to embark on myths and fairy tales. But, well, yes. This dragon was different. The whole story? Oh, my. Well, it went this way. Once upon a time . . .
Jonnie lay back on the bed with the helmet on his stomach and listened. Unfortunately he did have time. So he listened as Mr. Tsung went on telling him the long and involved fairy tale.
Suddenly about halfway through it, Jonnie abruptly sat up and said to the coordinator, “I thought so! Please send for Sir Robert.”
It startled Mr. Tsung and Jonnie said, “Thank you. Very good story. Thank you more than you know!”
As Lord Jonnie seemed pleased and things were a bit rushed, Mr. Tsung happily went out to make sure the silk suit was altered correctly.
Jonnie looked around to see whether there were any button cameras in the place. He couldn’t really tell. He didn’t think so, but he would be very brief and cryptic to play it on the safe side.
A couple minutes later Sir Robert came in. He too had been grooming himself. He was wearing a cloak with the Royal Stewart colors, a matching kilt, and Scottish white spats. The wool was made of shining hairs. He was the complete Scottish soldier and lord, excepting only weapons. Jonnie had never seen him dressed in full regimentals before. Quite impressive. But the old man looked a bit hollow-eyed and worried.
“This is going to be a tough one,” said Jonnie.
“Aye, lad. Did ye ken thet Tolnep? I be no diplomat, laddie, and there’s nae chonce of bringing Fearghus oot. The danger lies in antagonizing them lords and states thet isna involved as yet. A false step and we’ll be adding them tae the enemy!”
He was upset. Even talking in dialect.
Jonnie never thought he’d have to soothe Sir Robert. “We have a chance. A good one. Now here’s what I propose we do: you go in there by yourself and do all you can.” Sir Robert didn’t much care for that, but he listened. “And then when you have finished or think you have gone as far as possible, you call me in. Introduce me however you please, but not too specifically.”
“The communicator they’ve been using as host will do a’ the introductions,” said Sir Robert.
“Well, tell him what I said. All right?”
“Verra good, laddie. I’ll do whativer I can. An if I havna a cease-fire, I’ll ca’ you.”
The old war chief turned to leave. “Good luck!” said Jonnie.
“Aye, lad, that’s exactly what I’ll be a needin’! We’re nae a doin’ weel at a’ in the field!”
Jonnie looked at his watch. It wouldn’t be long now.
Chief Chong-won popped in, grinning. “The hole in the dam has stopped all but a trickle! My men are replacing the armor cable, patching and replacing it. The lake will be armored again before nightfall.” He threw his arms up simulating the earlier explosion Jonnie had made. “Boom!” he said and vanished.
Jonnie thought, boom indeed. We’ll all go boom if this conference fails.
7
Sir Robert had not been in the conference room three minutes before he realized that he was fighting the most difficult duel of his life.
And he was in no shape for it. He had hardly slept at all since their return and he recognized now that this was a huge error. For all his nickname, “the Fox,” he felt sluggish mentally. That nickname had been earned in physical combat and not in a conference room. Had this been a matter of troop dispositions and tactics, he could have coped with it. He would have laid an ambush for this Tolnep and transfixed him with arrows and hacked him to pieces with Lochaber axes.
But there stood the Tolnep, elegant, poised, and deadly, already pressing Sir Robert back toward defeat.
Sir Robert’s morale was very bad. Half the antiaircraft cover of Edinburgh had been wiped out by a desperate charge of Tolnep marines. Russia was not answering at all. And his own wife was unreported after a cave-in of passages to the bunkers. It was desperate that he get a cease-fire!
Yet this Tolnep was dithering around, posing, fiddling with his scepter, flattering the emissaries, and acting like he had all the time in the world!
His name was Lord Schleim. He had a tittering laugh that alternated with insidious, acid hisses. He was a master of debate much like a swordsman became a master of his blade.
“And so, my worthy colleagues,” the Tolnep was saying now, “I really have not the faintest idea why this assemblage was convened at all. Your own time, your physical comfort, even the dignity of your august persons, representing as you do the most powerful lords of the universes, should not have been assaulted and insulted by an upstart lot of barbarians involved in a petty, local dispute. This is a purely local affair, a minor spat. It involves no treaties and so your presence was well known to be unneeded by this weak band of outlaws and rebels who seek to call themselves a government. I propose that we simply dismiss this gathering and leave it up to the military commanders.”
The august body stirred, bored. And they were an august body. Jewels glittered on the breathing masks of some. Brilliant cloth rippled as they moved. Some even wore crowns as tokens of the sovereign power they represented. Twenty-nine arbiters of the fates of sixteen universes, they were quite conscious of their power. They felt that if they so chose, they could flick this small and unimportant planet into eternity with no more than a careless gesture of a claw or finger tip. They were not really paying too much attention to Lord Schleim, but tittering and whispering to one another, possibly about trivial scandals that had occurred since last they saw one another. They were evidence, physically, of what happens when different genetic lines, moving up from different roots, became sentient.
Off to the side sat the small gray man. Another man, quite similar to himself, but with a better quality gray suit, had arrived. They were quietly watching Sir Robert. It was very plain they were not going to intervene or help further.
Sir Robert loathed courtiers. Weak and corrupt and dangerous—that had always been his opinion of this breed. His contempt, he counseled himself, must not show. “Shall we get on with this meeting?” he said.
The emissaries stirred. They muttered responses. Yes, let’s complete the formalities. Must have come for something or other. Let’s get it over and done with—I’ve a birthday party waiting for my pet lizard (a remark followed by laughter).
They had all shown their credentials earlier and these had been acknowledged by the group, all but Sir Robert’s.
Lord Schleim had seated himself off to the side, in front where he could appear to be addressing them all as their leader. “We have not actually examined the credentials of this . . . this . . . soldier? who called this meeting,” he offered. “I move that he be removed as the principal speaker, that I be appointed in his stead.”
Sir Robert offered them the disk. It was played. It was in Gaelic, a tongue they didn’t know. And he might have been called ineligible to conduct the meeting had he not looked beseechingly at the small gray man and if one of the disinterested members had not asked the small gray man whether he had accepted these credentials. The small gray man nodded. Bored, the rest of them accepted the credentials.
That one had been touch-and-go for Sir Robert, for just prior to his entrance he had gotten word that the chief of Clanfearghus had been wounded in repelling an attack on the guns and he did not know whether he could get a confirmation from Edinburgh.
“I fear,” said Lord Schleim, “that I must raise another critical point. How can we be sure that this upstart planet can afford even the small costs of convening such a meeting as this? Your lordships surely would not want to remain unpaid and have to bear such expenses yourselves. They guaranteed the diplomatic costs but we have no way of knowing that they will ever pay them. A scrap of paper saying that one is owed does not fit well in the pocket.”
The emissaries laughed at the joke, poor as it was.
“We can pay,” glowered Sir Robert.
“With scraps off dirty plates?” said Lord Schleim.
The emissaries laughed some more.
“With Galactic credits!” snapped Sir Robert.
“Taken, no doubt,” said Lord Schleim, “from the pockets of our crewmen. Well, never mind. Your august lords have a perfect right to declare that the meeting should proceed. But I, myself, feel it is demeaning for the representatives of such mighty and powerful sovereigns to meet just to determine the conditions of surrender and capitulation of some felons—”
“Stop!” bellowed Sir Robert. He had had enough. “We are not here to discuss our surrender! Also there are other planets than your own involved and we have not heard from them!”
“Ah,” said Lord Schleim with a leisurely, airy rotation of his scepter, “but my planet has the most ships here—two for every one the other planets have. And the senior officer of this ‘combined police force’ happens to be a Tolnep. Quarter-Admiral Snowleter—”
“Is dead!” roared Sir Robert. “His flagship, the Capture, is lying right out there in the lake. Your admiral and that entire crew are carrion.”
“Oh, so?” said Lord Schleim. “It had slipped my mind. These accidents happen. Space travel is a perilous venture at best. Probably ran out of fuel. But it doesn’t alter what I have just said at all. Captain Rogodeter Snowl is the senior officer, then. He has just been promoted. So it remains that the senior commander and the greatest number of ships are Tolnep, which leaves me in the position of principal negotiator for the surrender of your people and planet after their unprovoked attack on us.”
“We are not losing!” stormed Sir Robert.
Lord Schleim shrugged. He cast a negligent glance over the assemblage as though pleading with them to have patience with this barbarian and drawled, “Would the assemblage give me leave to confirm certain points?”
Yes, of course, they muttered. Reasonable request.
Lord Schleim’s head bent over the round ball atop his scepter, and with a shock Sir Robert realized it was a disguised radio and that he had been in communication with his forces all along.
“Ah,” said Lord Schleim as he raised his head, showed his fangs in a smile, and fixed his glass-hooded eyes on Sir Robert. “Eighteen of your major cities are in flames!”
So that was why they were burning deserted cities. To make an appearance of winning. Just to terrorize and have a bargaining position in any surrender talks.
Sir Robert was about to tell him those were just deserted ruins that hadn’t been lived in for a millennium, but Lord Schleim was pressing on. “This august assembly needs proof. Please have this trace run off!” He pulled a tiny thread from the base of the radio, a trace copy of the type they received from drones.
“I will not do it!” said Sir Robert.
The assemblage looked a little shocked. It began to dawn on them that maybe this planet’s forces were losing.
“Suppression of evidence,” laughed Lord Schleim, “is a crime punishable by this body by fines. I suggest you mend your attitude. Of course, if you have no modern equipment . . .”
Sir Robert sent the trace out to a resolver. They waited and presently a stack of pictures came back.
They were spectacular air views, in full color, of twenty-five burning cities. The flames were roaring thousands of feet into the air, and if you passed a finger down the right border the sound turned on, the sound of rushing flames and crashing buildings cut through with the howl of furnace winds. Each picture had been taken at a height best showing the conflagration and the resulting effect was devastating.
Lord Schleim passed them around. Paws and jeweled hands and inquisitive feelers made them roar.
“We offer,” said Lord Schleim, “very liberal terms. I am quite sure I will be rebuked by a motion of our House of Plunder for being so liberal. But my feelings of pity prompt me and my word here is, of course, binding upon my government. The terms are that all your population be sold into slavery to meet the indemnities it incurred when Earth brought on this unprovoked war. I can even guarantee that they will be well treated—over fifty percent survive such transportation on the average. Other belligerents—the Hawvins, Jambitchows, Bolbods, Drawkins and Kayrnes—to divide up the rest of the planet to meet the expenses incurred in defending themselves against this unprovoked attack upon their peaceful ships. Your king can go into exile on Tolnep and even be provided with a spacious dungeon. Good fair terms. Too liberal, but my feelings of compassion prompt them.”
The other emissaries shrugged. It was obvious, it seemed to them, that they had been called here just to witness some surrender terms in a petty war.
Sir Robert was thinking fast, trying to see a way out of this trap. At the start of the meeting he thought he had heard the hum of the transshipment rig two or three times. He could not be sure. He could not count on anything right now. He was tired. His king was wounded. His wife might be dead. All he could really think of was leaping on this horrible creature and taking his chances with those poisoned fangs. But he knew such an action before these emissaries would be fatal to their last glimmering chances.
Seeing his indecision, Lord Schleim said with a harsh, acid hiss, “You Earthlings realize that these mighty lords can make an agreement to force your capitulation! I believe the other combatants of the combined police force agree to my terms?”
The representatives of the Hawvins, Jambitchows, Bolbods, Drawkins and Kayrnes all nodded and said, one after the other, that they certainly agreed to these liberal terms. The rest of the assembly was just watching. A local dispute. But they could swing over and support the Tolneps if it meant ending this useless consumption of their time.
“I came,” said Sir Robert, “to discuss your surrender. But before we go any further with this, I shall have to call in my fully authorized colleague.”
He made a signal in the direction of where he knew the button camera was and sat down. He was tired.
The slowness and delay of these deliberations had eaten into him. Didn’t these gilded popinjays realize that while they dawdled about, good men were dying out there in the field! But urgency never touched them. They were not even really interested.
He knew he had failed miserably. He hoped he had not hurt any chances Jonnie might have. Forlorn hope. It was all up to Jonnie now. But what could the poor lad possibly do?