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
You are courteously requested to send an authorized minister with powers plenipotentiary in all matters relating to political and military relationships with other races and with powers to negotiate and arrange final and binding treaties. His person is guaranteed and any effort to hold him as a hostage shall result in his immediate revocation of all agreements and his instant suicide.
Appear_______ hours at place of arrival.
TO:________________________
CONFERENCE PLACE:______________________
DURATION OF CONFERENCE AT MINISTERIAL DISCRETION.
PLANET NAME:_______________
ATMOSPHERE OF PLANET:_______________
MEAN TEMPERATURES:_______________
SUN TYPE:_______________
GRAVITY OF PLANET: _______________
METABOLISM OF RACE:_______________
FOOD SUPPLIES:
Available for your race______
Not available______
Return of emissary guaranteed, safe and in good condition, with copies of all relevant proceedings.
Recommended________________________
(Initial and seal)
Authorized representative for the legal government of this planet.
________________________
(signed)
All relevant diplomatic costs will be borne by this planet.
________________________
(signed)
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.”
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 Page 93