Talents, Incorporated Part 17

Out in s.p.a.ce, missiles hurtled away from the small s.h.i.+p _Isis_. They did not plunge directly at the battles.h.i.+p. They swung crazily in wide arcs.

The already-launched Mekinese missiles swerved to intercept them. They failed. More missiles erupted from the battles.h.i.+p, aimed to intercept.

They also failed. The battles.h.i.+p began to fling out every missile it possessed, in a frantic effort to knock out the _Isis's_ erratic missiles, which neither instruments nor eyes were able to follow accurately enough to establish a pattern of destination.

Half a dozen ground-cars roared through the streets of the capital city of Garen. They did not seem to be crowded. One man or at most, two, could be seen in each car, but they drove as a unit, one close behind another, at a furious pace. When they needed a clear way, the first sounded its warning-note and the others joined in as a chorus. Half a dozen sirens blaring together have an authoritative, emergency sound.

The way was cleared when that imperative clarion demanded it.

They swerved under the landing-grid. They raced and bounced across the clear surface which was the s.p.a.ceport. There stood a giant, rotund cargo-s.h.i.+p, pointing skyward. There were ground-trucks still supplying cargo for its nearly filled-up holds.

The six ground-cars braked, making clouds of dust. And suddenly there was not one or two men in each, but an astonis.h.i.+ng number. They knew exactly what they were about. Five of them plunged into the s.h.i.+p. Others drove off the ground-trucks. Uniformed men ran from the side of the s.p.a.ceport toward the s.h.i.+p, yelling. One ground-car started up again, rushed to the control-building, swerved sharply as a crash into it seemed inevitable, and dumped something out on the ground. It raced back to the other cars about the cargo-s.h.i.+p. The hold-doors were closing.

The object dumped by the control-building went off. It was a chemical-explosive bomb, but its power was adequate. The wall of the building caved in. Flames leaped crazily out of the collapsed heap. The landing-field would be out of operation.

The last car skidded to a stop. The two men in it ran for the boarding-stair of the cargo-boat. There was n.o.body of their party outside now. The landing-stair withdrew after them.

Then monstrous, incredible ma.s.ses of flame and steam burst from the bottom of the rotund s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p. It lifted, slowly at first, but then more and more swiftly. It climbed to the sky. It became a speck, and then a mote at the crawling end of a trail of opaque white emergency-rocket fumes. Then it vanished.

Far out in s.p.a.ce, there was an explosion brighter than the sun, and then a second and a third. There was a cloud of incandescent metal vapor.

Presently a missile found its target-seeking microwaves reflected by the ionized metal steam. It plunged into collision with that glowing stuff.

It exploded. Two or three more exploded, like the first. Others burned harmlessly.

A voice said, "_Cargo-s.h.i.+p reporting. Clear of ground. Everything going well. No casualties._"

"Report again when in clear s.p.a.ce," said Bors.

He waited. Several long minutes later a second report came.

"_Cargo-s.h.i.+p reporting. In clear s.p.a.ce._"

"Very good work!" said Bors. "You know where to go now. Go ahead!"

"_Yes, sir_," said the voice from s.p.a.ce. Then it asked apologetically, "_You got the battles.h.i.+p, sir?_"

The voice from s.p.a.ce sounded as if the man who spoke were grinning.

"_We'll celebrate that, sir! Good to have served with you, sir._"

Bors swung the _Isis_ and drove on solar-system drive to get well away from Garen. He watched the blip which was the captured s.h.i.+p as it seemed to hesitate a very, very long time. It was aiming, of course, for Glamis, that totally useless solar system around a planet where the fleet of Kandar orbited in bitter frustration.

Bors got up from his seat to loosen his muscles. He had sat absolutely tense and effectively motionless for a very long time. He ached. But he felt a sour sort of satisfaction. For a s.h.i.+p of the _Isis's_ cla.s.s to have challenged a battles.h.i.+p to combat, to have deliberately and insultingly waited for it to choose its own battle-distance, and then to let it launch its missiles first.... It was no ambus.h.!.+ Bors did not feel ashamed of this fight. He'd acted according to the instincts of a fighting man who gives his enemy the chance to use what weapons the enemy has chosen, and then defeats him.

His second-in-command said, "Sir, the cargo-boat blip is gone. It should be in overdrive now, sir, heading for Glamis."

"Then we'll follow it," said Bors. Suddenly he realized how his second-in-command must feel. The landing-party'd seen action--for which Bors envied them--and he'd felt ashamed because he stayed in the s.h.i.+p in what he considered safety while they risked their lives. But his second-in-command had had no share in the achievement at all. Bors had handled all controls and given all orders, even the routine ones, since before Tralee.

"I think," said Bors, "I'll have a cup of coffee. Will you take over and head for Glamis?"

He left the control-room, to let his subordinate handle things for a time. He'd seated himself in the mess-room when the voice of his second-in-command came through the speakers.

"_Going into overdrive_," said the voice. "_All steady. Five, four, three, two--_"

Bors prepared to wince. He put down his coffee cup and held himself ready for the sickening sensation.

Suddenly there was the rasping, snaring crackling of a high-voltage spark. There were shouts. There were explosions and the reek of overheated metal and smoldering insulation. Then the compartment-doors closed.

When Bors had examined the damage, and the emergency-purifiers had taken the smoke and smell out of the air, his second-in-command looked suicidally gloomy.

"It's bad business," said Bors wryly. "Very bad business! But I should have mentioned it to you. I didn't think of it. I wouldn't have thought of it if I'd been doing the overdrive business myself."

The second-in-command said bitterly;

"But I knew you'd tried the new low-power overdrive! I knew it!"

"I left it switched in," said Bors, "because I thought we might use it in the fight with the battles.h.i.+p. But we didn't."

"I should have checked that it was off!" protested his second. "It's my fault!"

Bors shrugged. Deciding whose fault it was wouldn't repair the damage.

There'd been a human error. Bors had approached Garen on the low-power overdrive that Logan had computed for him. There was a special switch to cut it in, instead of the standard overdrive. It should have been cut out when the standard overdrive was used. But somebody in the engine-room had simply thrown the main-drive switch when preparations for overdrive travel began. When the s.h.i.+p should have gone into overdrive, it didn't. The two parallel circuits amounted to an effective short-circuit. Generators, condensers--even the overdrive field coils in their armored mounts outside the hull--everything blew.

So the _Isis_ was left with a solar-system drive and rockets and nothing else. If the drive used only in solar systems were put on full, and the _Isis_ headed for Glamis, and if the food and water held out, it would arrive at that distant world in eighty-some years. It could reach Tralee in fifty. But there were emergency rations for a few weeks only. It was not conceivable that repairs could be made. This was no occasion calling for remarkable ingenuity to make some sort of jury-rigged drive. This was final.

"I've got to think," said Bors heavily.

He went to his own cabin.

Talents, Incorporated couldn't improvise or precognize or calculate an answer to this! And all previous plans had to be cancelled. Absolutely.

He dismissed at once and for all time the idea that the _Isis_ could be repaired short of months in a well-equipped s.p.a.ce-yard on a friendly planet. She should be blown up, after adequate pains were taken to destroy any novelties in her make-up. There were the tables of Logan's calculation. Bors found himself thinking sardonically that Logan should be shot because he had no obligation of loyalty to Kandar, and could as readily satisfy his hunger for recognition in the Mekinese service as in Kandar's. The crew....

That was the heart of the situation. The _Isis_ could not be salvaged.

She should be destroyed. There was only one world within reach on which human beings could live. That world was Garen. The _Isis_ could sit down on Garen, disembark her crew, and be blown up before Mekinese authorities could interfere. Perhaps--possibly--her crew could try to function on Garen as marooned pirates, as outlaws, as rebels against the puppet planetary government. But they knew too much. Every man aboard knew how the interceptor-proof missiles worked. Logan might be the only man who had ever calculated the tables for their use, but if any member of the _Isis's_ crew were captured and made to talk, he could tell enough for Mekinese mathematicians to start work with. If Logan were captured he could tell more. He could re-compute not only the tables for the missiles, but the data for low-power overdrive which would make any fleet invincible.

And there was the Kandarian fleet. If its existence became known, it would mean the destruction of Kandar. Every soul of all its millions would die with every tree and blade of gra.s.s, every flower, beast and singing bird, even the plankton in its seas.

Bors had arrived at the grimmest decision of his life when his cabin speaker said curtly:

"_Captain Bors, sir. s.p.a.ce-yacht_ Sylva _calling. Asks for you._"

"I'm here," said Bors.

Gwenlyn's voice came out of the speaker.

"_Are you in trouble, Captain? One of our Talents insists that you are._"

Bors swallowed.