New Lensman Part 21

'Lieutenant, I'm here to find out what happened when you were attacked a few minutes ago. My friends call me Glinda,' she said, her voice making it certain that he was a friend.

'Mine call me Larry, Glinda. As you said, we were attacked. Fortunately, at the time replacement guards in armor were coming up behind the attacker. They got inside before the doors closed and chased him up to the tube there. He fired a shot into the control cable before they killed him.'

Larry watched her intently. She acted a little fl.u.s.tered. Larry probed gently and found her confused. The fear was dying away and being replaced with nervous fascination, since he didn't act suspicious of her.

'Was it serious?' she asked, hesitantly.

'The batteries aren't operable until they repair it. They've got a couple men on it now.'

'How long will that be?'

'I really shouldn't tell you, Glinda. Security, and all that.'

'I gather it will be awhile?'

Larry nodded. 'Do you have to file your story right now?' he asked.

'No-o-o, not right now.'

'I'm off duty. Could I buy you a drink? I know a little bar in the, Dome that's open all night.

She hesitated, and smiled. 'Well...'

'I have my communicator here, and if anything happens, they'll call me. And of course, when they do, you'll know too.'

'All right,' she moistened her lips.

Larry drove her transporter. They talked a little about themselves, playing out the charade. Larry told her stories about the Patrol, true, except they had happened to other people.

She told him that she had been married and divorced. Gotten interested in politics and then told stories about her a.s.signments - true, except she had read them in a book. He found out that she drank vodka.

[Hanovich.] Larry Lensed ahead. [Are there any bars open in the Dome?]

[Only one on Wednesday morning at this hour,] Hanovich answered.

[Great. Call them and tell them to close up for an hour,] Larry ordered.

Next he Lensed the bellhop at the hotel. [I need a couple liters of vodka and gin, and some mix in the refrigerator in my room. Make it good stuff but water the gin. And a roll of wide adhesive tape in the nightstand. Can do?]

[Can do,] the bellhop replied.

They pulled up at the closed bar. Larry pointed to the sign that gave the hours. 'I don't understand why they're closed,' he said. 'Certainly the alert shouldn't have anything to do with it.'

'Oh, what alert?' Glinda asked.

'The Patrol is having some kind of maneuvers. If you're really interested, I'll find out about it later. Why don't we go up to my room over at the hotel? I have a bottle of vodka and mix. We can talk a little while.'

She smiled at him and pressed her knee against his. 'All right, but I've got to file my story first.'

They found a public visiphone in the hotel lobby. Larry got the keys to his room from the desk and then sat down on a couch and watched her as she made the call. It was the same phone the other suspect had used to call her. Larry was too far away to hear and she had her back to him, so he couldn't lip read. He Lensed. Hanovich and they both listened in from the control center. The number she called was probably connected to a radio relay, from the quality of the voice at the other end. Hanovich was later able to confirm that.'

She reported success on her mission, that all the other members of her group were dead and that she had McQueen in tow. Her orders were short and blunt. 'Get what information you can out of him and kill him.'

She smiled, and Larry, probing her, decided that she wasn't a very nice person after all, as the details of just how and when she planned to kill him flitted through her mind. At least he was safe until then.

She finished her call and returned to him, smiling. 'There!' she said, 'that should hold them for awhile. Shall we go?'

Inside his room she presented her mouth for kissing, which Larry did. They necked for a few moments and then Larry broke to mix some drinks. He imagined he felt like a male widow spider.

He poured her half a gla.s.sful She took it and flitted around the room, finally ending up in an armchair and kicking off her shoes. The drink was already half gone.

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They talked. She tried to pump him about the fleet, the general callout, the Service and details of what had happened at Copernicus Control. He, in turn, tried to find out what she thought of Tellus, when she had been there, who her boss was and things like that, while giving out hints and odd tidbits to keep her interested. She wasn't drinking.

He changed the subject to her personal life history and she started drinking. He used his Lens to gently probe each time she stopped drinking, and steered the conversation in directions that seemed to make her start again. He refilled her gla.s.s twice and, probing, he could feel her getting drunk amazingly fast.

She got up and came over to the bed where he was sitting. She put her hand against his chest, and gently pushed. He went over backwards. 'I like you,' she said, falling onto the bed with him.

'Make love to me,' she asked in a little girl voice. 'No one ever seemed to care.'

It was rapidly becoming obvious that she had misjudged her capacity for alcohol. She was rapidly slipping into unconsciousness He removed her rings. 'They scratch,' he explained. They would have indeed They were her poison fangs. He dropped them in the nightstand.

Now the question was, would the depressant effects of the alcohol be enough to dull the compulsion to suicide? Could he keep her drunk enough to be out of control, but sober enough to be conscious?

After an hour of effort, he finally let her sink down into unconsciousness. An hour of work with little to show for his efforts. It was a little like trying to play two pianos at the same time.

On one hand he had to keep her conscious but not too much so; on the other, he had to probe past her automatic defenses for the specific information he wanted.

He found out that most of the personal information she had given was true. No father, and an intensive clod of a man for a husband. She had been recruited, indoctrinated, conditioned, implanted and turned loose. Larry had a name, 'Petrino'. A couple places on Tellus to look, if you considered New York and Los Angeles places to look. He had neither the time, knowledge, nor the techniques to remove the implanted compulsions. He did have a general idea how it had been done though, and wouldn't recommend it to his worst enemy.

She had no interest in stars or astronomy. He had no leads to where or what Petrino was. A dead end, but if he held onto her, she'd suicide. He considered the matter for a while. What to do with her? From the way she was sleeping, it would be at least another eight hours before she would wake up, and he'd have to make the final decision. For right now he taped her up so she couldn't run away if she woke up before he got back, and tucked her, fully clothed, under the covers. He took her rings and left.

On the way out he met the bellhop, paid him and thanked him for the special service.

Glad to help a Patrolman,' the bellhop said. 'Was the vodka all right?'

Yes, why?' Larry asked.

Well, from the way you set it up. I figured the vodka was for the lady. So I poured about a quarter of the bottle out and replaced it with Eth.'

Eth?'

Yeah. You know, 180 proof alcohol. They use it in the transporters.'

Larry dumped the rings in a nearby trash container and continued out the door. It hadn't been so hard bringing her in after all. He'd rather enjoyed it, he thought as he headed for Copernicus Control.

Copernicus Control was either a smooth running operation or a madhouse, depending on whether you were watching or working there. The Grand Fleet was streaming outbound to englobe the Solar System in an attempt to discover the direction from which the enemy was approaching. In theory the manned commercial s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps were heading for the nearest port until the battle, if there was going to be one, was over. In practice it didn't quite work out that way. Every s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p captain considered himself an armchair general capable of second guessing not only the Galactic Patrol, the Solarian Patrol's new name, but also the enemy in advance. He knew that he had enough time to complete his journey. Since considerable amounts of money rode on some of their cargoes, some risk may have been justified. But most of the reasoning was just stupid, or wishful thinking.

After a few minutes of argument, the Galactic Patrol declared martial law and dumped the whole problem of clearing the Solar System of noncombatants back into Copernicus Control's lap. Any captain disobeying orders would have his license pulled, permanently. As a result, the job became relatively easier.

More than one of the operators at Copernicus Control remembered ruefully his laughing at oldtimers who explained what a job it had been integrating with Grand Fleet operations and clearing a few sectors of the Solar System. Now their problem was multiplied manyfold. They didn't have time to remember for long. There was too much work to be done. They put the s.h.i.+ps into satellite orbits 7475

about the nearest planets and moons and hoped that the ground controllers could bring them down in time.

Lensman Larry McQueen picked a spot on the rail overlooking the tank. He and numerous other personages who could w.a.n.gle their way in, had a ringside seat to the situation and to the battle when it came. Headsets permitted them to listen in on various channels.

They didn't have to wait long before it started. 'Flags.h.i.+p Chicago to Grand Fleet Headquarters!'

came clearly through the din of static and background noise. 'The Black Fleet has been detected.'

Controllers stopped to listen. 'RA 12 hours, declination plus 20, distance about 30 light- years...'

As the voice spoke, the image in the tank shrank and on the edge of the tank a black circle appeared. The co-ordinates indicated that they were coming almost straight in toward Tellus out of the constellation Coma Berenices. That made a lot of second guessers happy but had the opposite effect on the controllers. They went to work, concentrating on trying to clear as much as possible of the hemisphere of the Solar System around that line.

In the tank the motions of the Grand Fleet changed. Now instead of spreading out, it was being pulled in to concentrate itself in that hemisphere. There was no word yet from Grand Fleet Headquarters as to where they intended to make their stand. That made Larry nervous but he realized that until GFHQ had some idea as to the composition of the enemy forces, their formation and whether this was the only group they had to contend with, the decision would have to be delayed. Still the decision had to be made soon. Preliminary formations were beginning to form.

The report came in. The Black Fleet seemed to be of a standard composition. It was somewhat smaller than the Patrol's Grand Fleet but considerably larger than the North American contingent, whom they would have been fighting if it had been a successful sneak attack.

'Operation Affick,' GFHQ announced, and a groan went around the room. Operation Affick meant that the interception would be inside the Solar System, increasing the urgency for the already overloaded facilities to get the remaining 20 per cent of the noncombatants down on the ground.

The Port of Copernicus had s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps all over the crater, not bothering to put them in permanent docks, except for the few that couldn't land anywhere else.

The Galactic Patrol's hollow, open-mouthed Cone of Battle was forming. if they were allowed to complete it in front of the oncoming Black Fleet, it would be strategically like the crossing of the T in naval warfare. All of the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps of the Galactic Patrol would be able to simultaneously direct their fire at the enemy, while only a limited number of the enemy would be able to return it.

The Black Fleet came on. Moving in a formation whose speed was limited by the speed of the slowest s.h.i.+ps. The formation was puzzling. Instead of a sphere or disk, or of an open-mouthed cone, it looked like a large arrow. The solid, conical head of which pointed toward Tellus; and in the shaft were three slow-moving s.h.i.+ps that looked like cargo scows. The Galactic Patrol's cone retreated at extreme range in front of it as the cone picked up groups of s.h.i.+ps to fill in gaps in its surface. Closer and closer the two formations came to Tellus.

The engagement started. The Cone of Battle stopped as a unit, complete and ready. The count of 'Two, One, Zero!' - and there blazed out from the Cone of Battle a composite beam of energy miles in diameter toward the Black Fleet. A column of energy so outrageously violent and raw as to be starkly incomprehensible. The concentrated inferno of incredible violence hurled itself upon the Black Fleet, causing those s.h.i.+ps in its path to flare into nothingness. Only the heaviest of s.h.i.+ps could mount generators capable of producing screens that could handle that load, and then for only a very limited time.

Yet the beam was not effective. An instant after it was generated, the beam was cut and the Cone of Battle broken up. The Galactic Patrol's irresistible weapon could not be used against a formation that didn't exist. The moment of the Cone of Battle's stopping had acted as a signal to the Black Fleet. The arrow formation instantly scattered. The cargo scows broke up into thousands of robot-guided missiles with Bergenholm drives, polycyclic drills and atomic warheads. They broke apart and flooded out of the field of action of the Patrol's furious beam.

In an instant that region of s.p.a.ce seemed filled with slas.h.i.+ng, fighting, madly warring s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps and missiles. The battle spread toward Tellus as light cruisers and scouts of the Galactic Patrol darted Earthward, trying to head off the weapons on their way past Luna to the Hill.

At the same time on Tellus another fleet of small blacks appeared out of the Gulf of California and headed toward The Hill from the south.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE GALACTIC PATROL VS. THE BLACK FLEET.

Harv and the moon creeper spiraled up over the west rim following the cable with the spy ray as 7576

far as he could into the dense ma.s.s of concrete and steel he found there. Pete followed a few minutes later in the Mooncar. Apparently a large portion of the west peak had been hollowed out for the moon base. Harv found the entrance. It was a hole three hundred feet high and fifty feet wide in an east-west cliff face. It was oriented to look like a huge shadow, a wrinkle in the wall. The area leading up to the entrance was crushed rock, so no tracks were left. The crushed rock formed a long slow ramp in the opposite direction toward the main Mayer crater. The moon creeper and the Mooncar entered the cliff face entrance and turned on their lights. At one side of the cavern two s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps stood. The walls and ceiling looked as if the cavern had originally occurred naturally in the crater face. The vehicles proceeded down the cavern and around a corner where there was an air lock able to take a complete vehicle, if necessary. It stood open. Around it were parked three other Mooncars, and a dozen tracked vehicles. Harv and Pete pulled in next to them.

'Leave the creeper to defend the entrance with the fighting unit,' Pete said. 'We'll see what's inside.'

'OK, while they're getting positioned, help me unload my tender,' Harv replied. 'I was expecting to explore this place.'

The tender contained six 'pack mules,' eight-wheeled, articulated vehicles designed to be able to travel through narrow corridors or caves, and loaded with gear which Harv had acc.u.mulated in antic.i.p.ation of exploring this place.

There was no air inside the base. When it was abandoned, all the air had been pumped back into storage tanks, which in the hundreds of intervening years had leaked their contents to the vacuum outside, and the power had been turned off. Harv started his examination of the blackness ahead with a portable Spy ray. The first thing they did was follow a long pa.s.sageway using their vacuum suit lights. After they had reached the door at the other end Harv explained, 'When the system power is on, this pa.s.sageway is a neat little deathtrap. They didn't like uninvited guests.'

When they were outside of the pa.s.sageway, Pete opened a light fixture and connected in a small generator to the wires, while Harv again explored with his spy ray. The lights came on. 'Find the light switch and turn it on so the rest of the lighting system will have power,' Pete said.

'The power plant must be on one of the lower levels. There's an elevator about a thousand feet ahead,' Harv said.

A few minutes later they were at the elevator. 'The power plant is down about three-quarters of a mile,' Harv reported. 'I doubt if the atomic pile will operate. The fuel probably needs re- refining by this time. We'll take the elevator down.'

They cut into the wall of the elevator shaft to the power cables and installed another small generator. The elevator took them to the Combat Control Center. The power room was next door. In the power room they connected one of the mule pack burdens, an allotropic iron generator, and then went back to the room containing the Combat Control Center.

'Turn on the screens and let's see if ... yeah. We've got visitors already. Too bad they didn't land in Mayer A,' Pete said. 'The blasters would have given them a little surprise !'

'I wonder if the weapons here still work. They've unloaded four fighting units so far, and somehow I don't think that our one will be enough,' Harv said. He flipped on a couple of WEAPON READY switches. The lights dimmed. He turned them off and the lights brightened again.

'Pete, go next door and connect in the other power supply,' Harv said. 'It looks like we're going to need it to charge the acc.u.mulators in these weapons.'

'Sure it isn't just a short circuit?'

'No, I don't think a short could last long enough to draw the kind of power our generator is capable of putting out,' Harv answered.

A minute later two s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps landed in Mayer A. There was a long pause as the captains aboard looked around for signs of danger. Neither noticed that the mining blaster mounted on the creva.s.se bridge no longer pointed down into the hole it had cut to release Harv, but was now aimed in their general direction. Harv had informed the moon creeper, who was connected to the Combat Control Center via spy-ray relay, of the new development. The creeper moved the blaster as Harv directed.

By now Harv was seated at one of the consoles, waiting. A hatch opened. The blaster turned with microscopic slowness toward the s.p.a.cecraft.

'With these new transparent polycyclic screens you can't visually tell when the screens are down.

Wait until they're commited by putting down the unloading ramp. OK, here it comes! Hold it ...

Hold it ... Hold ... FIRE!!' Harv commanded of the creeper.

The mining blaster, which had been designed to punch a hole through one hundred feet of solid rock in ten seconds, lashed out with its incandescent beam at point-blank range. It cut through the propulsion section of the s.p.a.cecraft with a fantastic display of pyrotechnics as molten metal, blown by hot gases, sprayed forth in a shower. In less than a second the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p had been 7677