by E. C. Tubb
“Silence!” Brant stared at us, spots of colour flaming on his cheeks. “This insubordination must cease! I must remind you gentlemen that this is a ship of war. An auxiliary of the Earth Federation. You will conduct yourselves accordingly.” He stared at us as if expecting defiance. “First Officer Prin?”
“I understand, sir.”
“Second Officer Lee?”
“Sure,” said Lee. He met Brant’s eyes. “I mean, I understand—sir.’’
“Good.” Brant relaxed. “That will be all, gentlemen, you may return to your duties. We leave at dawn.”
Outside the control room Lee wiped sweat from his face and looked at me.
“The bastard,” he said. “Oh, the sweet, unlovable bastard!”
*
A ship is like a family, everyone has an interest in everyone else. If a man gets toothache then the rest will see to it that he gets it fixed—they can’t tolerate his noise and misery. If a man has an unhappy love affair then the rest will cheer him up. If a man gets the wrong ideas then the others will cut him back to size. It’s a simple matter of survival. When a dozen men live in a small area they have to live together—or they don’t live.
That’s the basic reason for one-world crews. The captain is more than just the man who gives the orders, he’s the confidante and confessor of the crew as well. And, coming from the same planet as we did, meant we trusted him to take care of us if for no other reason than he’d have to answer to our kin if he didn’t.
Brant was a stranger with a stranger’s ways. I wondered what Central Bureau—Earth, was trying to do. The Federation had expanded by means of conquest and colonisation, all of us had our hereditary ties with the Mother World and so far no one had questioned those ties. Not even when war had been declared against the Ilithen, the odd, lizard-like race we’d bumped into and whom we had been fighting for the past seven years, had anyone objected. Earth was at war, that had been good enough for us. We’d pitched in and hadn’t argued. But now—
“I don’t like it.” Lee had joined me in my cabin. We were two days out with nothing to do. The Banner engines had pushed us into hyper-space and we didn’t really exist until we emerged back into the normal continuum.
“What don’t you like?” I was off watch, supposed to be asleep. “Brant?”
“Who else?” Lee sat and fumed to himself for a while. “You ever been to Earth, Prin?”
“No. You?”
“No, but I’ve met those who have.” He shook his head.
“Crazy sort of planet.”
I leaned back and waited. Lee had something on his mind and it would come out in its own, good time. Finally it came out.
“I’m scared, Prin,” he admitted. “I’ve heard all about these bright boys fresh from the training schools. I’ve heard about their training too.” He looked at me, I still waited.
“Seng wasn’t so bad,” he burst out. “Brant’s different, he’s not one of us and doesn’t give a damn for anyone but himself. All he wants is to build up a record so that he can prove himself.”
“That’s natural. Every young commander’s the same.” “Maybe, but the crew aren’t too happy at the way he treats them. All this ‘sir’ business. Hell, Seng never expected it and they don’t like giving it. It,” he waved a hand, “it sort of puts up a barrier between us, makes us feel inferior.”
That I could agree with. On Ormond we didn’t go in for titles and lip-service. We didn’t go in for unnecessary spit and polish either, what did it matter if a handrail was painted or polished bright? It was still a handrail. During the past couple of days Brant had had the crew working for the sake of it. Still, all that would be forgotten when we entered battle. I said so. Lee pursed his lips.
“That’s what I’m scared of,” he said. “I don’t mind taking a chance, we’ve done it often enough, but I like to think that the captain is thinking of my neck a little more than his record. Seng did. Will Brant?”
“It’s his neck too,” I pointed out. “You think he wants to get himself killed?”
“From what I’ve heard, his type don’t give a damn about that. They’re all heroes, every one of them. All they care about is medals—and they don’t mind if they’re posthumous at that.”
“Now you’re talking stupid. Brant’s young and eager, sure, and he’s from Earth which makes a difference. He’s got tradition behind him and a way of doing things and he’s eager to make his mark. Well, what’s so wrong about that?”
“Trying to defend him, Prin?”
“No, but I’m not going to damn him either. Let’s give him his chance. Seng’s dead, forget Seng. Brant’s the captain now, like it or not. It’s a fact we’ve got to live with. Let’s start living.”
“Or dying,” said Lee sombrely. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Ten days later we nipped from hyper-space and readied for action. Intelligence had reported enemy activity in this area and our job was to knock out any Ilithen ship we spotted. So much I learned from Brant and relayed the information to the crew. Brant didn’t seem to think they would be interested.
Not that it was new to them, we’d done the same thing often enough before, but none of us liked it. There was too much waiting, too little action, too much time hanging too heavily on our hands. We’d emerge close to where the enemy were expected and hope that we could spot them before they spotted us. If we were lucky we’d hit them before their own missiles could reach us—or rather reach the spot where we had been. It was wait, fire, run in that order.
This time we didn’t have to wait too long and I was glad of it. We had automatic scanners, of course, and mechanical aiming gear but that was about all. Theoretically we didn’t need a crew but the ship wasn’t designed for self-operation. Also there was the small but important matter of identification. We didn’t want to shoot our own vessels out of space.
“Something at ninety-seven; fifty-two.” The voice from the gunnery room echoed from the speakers. Simultaneously a green fleck glowed on the control room screen.
“Prime tubes!” I glanced at the radio operator. He’d flashed the FF signal. If they didn’t answer correctly we’d fire.
“Wait!” Brant stared at two more flecks on the screen. The sight did things to my stomach. I didn’t wait for Brant.
“Fire!” I felt rather than heard the hiss and thud of the launching tubes as they spat their missiles. The next thing was to get out of here. With three ships shooting at us we were as good as dead if we didn’t. Brant thought so too. He hit the switch, the Banner’s pushed us into hyper-space—then he hit the switch again.
“Aim and fire at will!”
I was groggy from the sudden thrust in and out of hyper-space. On the screen the enemy vessels showed actual contours, so close had we come. It could have been imagination but I could have sworn I saw the flashes from their launching tubes.
“Brant! For God’s sake!”
The deck vibrated beneath my feet. One of the enemy vessels suddenly dissolved into an expanding mist, our original target probably, then Brant hit the switch again—too late.
Torp missiles aren’t big but they pack plenty of power. Something jerked the deck from beneath my feet, lifted it, slapped it into my face. A giant yelled from somewhere in the ship and a gush of heat blasted from the ventilators. Then the roar faded, signal lights flashed on the panels and, aside from a man screaming, the ship was silent. Then even the screaming died.
Our damage was three men killed, two compartments devastated and half our supplies ruined. It could have been worse. One of the enemy torps which had hit us turned out to be a dud. It was a miracle which saved us from complete destruction.
Brant wasn’t upset. “A fair exchange,” he said, as we limped home for repairs. “Three men dead, three enemy ships destroyed.”
“We could have all been killed,” I reminded. He shrugged. “You expect to take risks in war.”
“Chances, yes. Suicide, no.”
“Indeed?” He stared
at me almost as if I were an interesting specimen. “Tell me, First Officer Prin, how would you have conducted that engagement?” I told him, he looked disgusted.
“I can understand now why the auxiliaries are letting us down so badly. You would have fired one burst then hidden in hyper-space. Didn’t it ever occur to you that it was worth trying for all three of the enemy, even at the cost of this vessel?”
“No.” I expanded the bald negative. “The odds were too Sigh. It’s better to hit and run so that you can hit again. After all, we only have one life.”
“And that is important to you?”
“Very important.” He cut me short before I could elaborate.
“Important, perhaps, to you no doubt. But not to the Federation. You, I, this ship, all are expendable.” He sighed. “It appears that that is something else I shall have to teach you.”
It wasn’t until Brant joined us that I realised how far we had grown from Earth. Our first engagement emphasised the difference between us and every following engagement made it worse. He was, as Lee pointed out, hardly human.
“How can he be?” he insisted. “Look at the chances he takes, would a normal man take such risks?”
“He might.” I was still trying to be fair. “Back home, say, if a fire threatened to wipe out your farm, you’d take risks then.”
“Sure, I helped build that place, my kin live there. But that’s different.”
“Not to Brant, it isn’t. He’s a Terrestrial, remember, Earth is at war.”
“Well, so are we.”
He had me there. The Federation was in this war as a unit, we should have all felt the same about it. Up until now I thought we all had done. But obviously we didn’t. Brant, now, he didn’t feel the same as Lee did or as I did for that matter. He seemed to be dedicated to destroying the enemy holding his own life, in comparison, as less than nothing. The trouble was he held our lives in exactly the same way.
“It’s the training,” said Lee. “They take a young guy and they do things to him and turn him out like Brant. In a war that might be okay, but what about after? What good will he be then?” He frowned in thought. “You know something, Prin.”
“What?”
“I figure that Earth knows what Brant is like, all the Brants. That’s why they’ve given them command of the auxiliaries. What does Earth care if he kills us all—just so long as he takes a few of the enemy with him.”
I didn’t like the line the talk was taking and said so. Lee shrugged. “Let’s face it, Prin. What does Earth care about us? Really care, I mean? We supply ships, but all the good ones get commandeered. We provide crews and get Terrestrials put in command. All Earth cares about is beating the Ilithen and it seems as if any way is good enough.” He scowled at the bulkhead. “Seven years now. When’s it going to end?”
“When we’ve beaten the Ilithen.”
“You think so? And what then? More expansion, another alien race, more war with us as the fall guys?” He leaned towards me. “Don’t you ever feel as if you want to go home? Don’t you ever get the feeling that Brant is pushing his luck a little too far?”
“Maybe he can’t help himself.” Some perversity made me defend Brant, deep down I felt just as Lee did.
“Maybe he can’t, that’s the trouble, that’s what I’m worried about. I tell you, Prin, Brant’s leading us straight to hell and he won’t rest until he’s got us there. You’ll see.”
The duty bell chimed then and I had to join Brant in control. He was, as usual, busy with his papers though what the hell he found to do after twenty days in hyper-space I couldn’t guess. Seng would have cleared his desk on the first day out and spent the rest of the time yarning or playing cards with the crew. Thinking of Seng made me pay attention to Brant.
Outwardly he was the same as we were, a little more precise, a little more distant, but we all came from the same stock. Physically there was no difference, mentally was something else.
We had no contact. He was the captain and we were the crew and it ended there. There was no affinity, no common weaknesses, no mutual understanding. Brant had come to us a stranger and he had remained a stranger. He was from Earth and we were from Ormond. He had thousands of years of tradition behind him; we had a few generations. Looking at him I felt that I was looking at an alien.
He felt my eyes and lifted his head.
“Something wrong, First Officer Prin?”
“No, sir.” Seng would have put it differently and received a different answer. You can talk to a friend, how can you talk to a stranger?
“I had the impression there was,” he said quietly. “You are free to tell me anything you wish.” What could I say? Could I tell him that we were afraid of his taking us to our deaths? It was true enough but not the whole truth. We didn’t want to get killed but that didn’t mean we weren’t willing to take chances. We just didn’t want to throw our lives away.
Could I tell him that we were sick of the war? After seven years of it that must have been obvious, even to him. Could I tell him that we begrudged him his command? That we didn’t trust him to consider our welfare? Could I tell him that he was disliked because he was not one of our own? What could I say?
“Well, First Officer Prin?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“I see.” He sat, head tilted, staring at me with those blue eyes. After a long moment he sighed. “Very good, First Officer. Take over watch now. We emerge in seven hours, call me in five, I will brief you then.”
It was a long five hours.
We’d never been briefed before. With Seng it hadn’t been necessary, we all knew the routine, and until now Brant hadn’t bothered. Perhaps crews on Terrestrial ships were left in ignorance or perhaps he’d figured that we’d be happier left that way. Certainly had we known what was in store for us on some of his missions we’d have kicked. As Lee did now.
“It’s crazy,” he said flatly. “It’s worse than that, it’s suicide.”
Brant didn’t answer. Instead he looked at Lee then at me. His briefing included only us two.
“Well, First Officer Prin?”
I agreed with Lee, I had to, but I didn’t say that.
“I can’t see how it can be done, sir. Or why it has to be done.”
“It has to be done,” Brant said evenly. And he told us why.
The Ilithen were alien and because of that it was physically impossible for agents to be planted among them. Instead Intelligence had devised a means of snap-observations; tiny spotter ships would flash out of hyper-space, see and record what they could, then escape while they had the chance. Their information was fed into the giant computers at Central bureau and the running of the war was based on their predictions. The enemy operated in exactly the same way. It was a peculiar situation of feint, bluff, and attack with the game going to the side with the most efficient spotters and computers. A game in which time was the vital factor.
Radio didn’t operate in hyper-space. Couriers were used instead. The quicker relevant information could be carried to a computer the better—and the Ilithen had a master-computer almost on our doorstep.
We had to destroy it.
Put that way it sounded easy but we all knew it was far from that.
“They’ll have that thing ringed with ships!” Lee’s voice rose as he thought of it. “Static forts, the works! We’ll be wiped out within seconds.”
“The installation is new,” said Brant mildly. “No static forts as yet. A few ships, of course, but that is to be expected.” He rested his hand on the orders which had sent us on this crazy mission. “The computer is mobile, assembled in space from components which were dropped in orbit. Secrecy was their only defence and they knew it. That means no heavy concentration of ships at that point.”
“But we know,” I pointed out. “They must know that we know. Anyway, it’s only logical that they would rush protection there as soon as they could.”
“Of course, that’s why we have to attack without delay.” I w
ondered at his calmness. To me the operation called for a full fleet, not a single converted cargo auxiliary. All right, so we happened to be the closest, we could get there the fastest, but we were still a single ship. The enemy would be waiting for us with all the advantage.
I saw Lee glance at his watch and knew what he was thinking. In an hour now, even less, we would all be dead. Unless...” This installation has to be destroyed,” said Brant quietly. “You understand that there can be no question as to that.”
“Why? So that you can get a medal?” Lee’s voice was high with strain.
“So that we can stop the war ending the way it must not end —with us defeated.”
“Us?” Lee snorted. “Earth you mean, don’t you?”
“Is there any difference?” Brant spoke very quietly. “Aren’t we all of the same race, the same family? Isn’t it important that we remain as we are, not as another race would want us to be? Oh, I know that you consider that I am different to you and have resented me because of that, but is the difference so great? Would you be happier if the Ilithen ruled Ormond?”
“Would it make any difference?” Lee glanced at his watch again. I avoided his eyes.
“Perhaps not,” said Brant. He sounded weary. “But we have no time for philosophy. Let’s get on with what we have to do.”
He told us the rest of his plan, the one, single chance of doing what he had been ordered to do. When he finished I felt sick inside.
Lee was right.
It was a suicide mission.
The last few minutes are always the longest. Alone in the control room I had plenty of time for thought. Brant’s plan was insane but, because of that, it might conceivably work. I wondered if he would have used the same plan had his ship been crewed with Terrestrials. Perhaps, perhaps not, if they were all like him then they were a crazy bunch. I turned as Lee entered the compartment.
“Is he ready?”
He nodded. His eyes were furtive, almost ashamed.
“You know, Prin,” he said abruptly. “He doesn’t have to do this. We needn’t let him.”
“No.” I knew what he was thinking. The crew could refuse the mission, take over the ship, go back home and forget the war. I’d thought of it myself. Thought of it often when the going was hard and death waited only a whisper distant. It was a tempting thought but not a good one. Mutiny can never be justified.