Collected Fiction

by Theodore R. Cogswell

  “We’re falling into the sun!” he screamed.

  “It’s getting sort of hot,” said Kurt. “Hot” was an understatement. The thermometer needle pointed at a hundred and ten and was climbing steadily.

  Ozaki jerked open the stores compartment door and grabbed a couple of spare batteries. As quickly as his trembling fingers would work, he connected them to the emergency power line. A second later the cabin lights flickered on and Ozaki was warming up the space communicator. He punched the transmitter key and a call went arcing out through hyperspace. The vision screen flickered and the bored face of a communication tech, third class, appeared.

  “Give me Commander Krogson at once!” demanded Ozaki.

  “Sorry, old man,” yawned the other, “but the commander’s having breakfast. Call back in half an hour, will you?”

  “This is an emergency! Put me through at once!”

  “Can’t help it,” said the other, “nobody can disturb the Old Man while he’s having breakfast.”

  “Listen, you knucklehead,” screamed Ozaki, “if you don’t get me through to the commander as of right now, I’ll have you in the uranium mines so fast that you won’t know what hit you!”

  “You and who else?” drawled the tech.

  “Me and my cousin Takahashi!” snarled the pilot. “He’s Reclassification Officer for the Base STAP.”

  The tech’s face went white. “Yes, sir!” he stuttered. “Right away, sir! No offense meant, sir!” He disappeared from the screen. There was a moment of darkness and then the interior of Commander Krogson’s cabin flashed on.

  The commander was having breakfast. His teeth rested on the white tablecloth and his mouth was full of mush.

  “Commander Krogson!” said Ozaki desperately.

  The commander looked up with a startled expression. When he noticed his screen was on he swallowed his mush convulsively and popped his teeth back into place.

  “Who’s there?” he demanded in a neutral voice in case it might be somebody important.

  “Flight Officer Ozaki,” said Flight Officer Ozaki.

  A thundercloud rolled across the commander’s face. “What do you mean by disturbing me at breakfast?” he demanded.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” said the pilot, “but my ship’s falling into a red sun.”

  “Too bad,” grunted Commander Krogson and turned back to his mush and milk.

  “But, sir,” persisted the other, “you’ve got to send somebody to pull me off. My converter’s dead!”

  “Why tell me about it?” said Krogson in annoyance. “Call Space Rescue, they’re supposed to handle things like this.”

  “Listen, commander,” wailed the pilot, “by the time they’ve assigned me a priority and routed the paper through proper channels, I’ll have gone up in smoke. The last time I got in a jam it took them two weeks to get to me. I’ve only got hours left!”

  “Can’t make exceptions,” snapped Krogson testily. “If I let you skip the chain of command, everybody and his brother will think he has a right to.”

  “Commander,” howled Ozaki, “we’re frying in here!”

  “All right. All right!” said the commander sourly. “I’ll send somebody after you. What’s your name?”

  “Ozaki, sir. Flight Officer Ozaki.” The commander was in the process of scooping up another spoonful of mush when suddenly a thought struck him squarely between the eyes.

  “Wait a second,” he said hastily, “you aren’t the scout who located the Imperial base, are you?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the pilot in a cracked voice.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” roared Krogson. Flipping on his intercom he growled, “Give me the Exec.” There was a moment’s silence.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “How long before we get to that scout?”

  “About six hours, sir.”

  “Make it three!”

  “Can’t be done, sir.”

  “It will be done!” snarled Krogson and broke the connection.

  The temperature needle in the little scout was now pointing to a hundred and fifteen.

  “I don’t think we can hold out that long,” said Ozaki.

  “Nonsense!” said the commander and the screen went blank.

  Ozaki slumped into the pilot chair and buried his face in his hands. Suddenly he felt a blast of cold air on his neck. “There’s no use in prolonging our misery,” he said without looking up. “Those spare batteries won’t last five minutes under this load.”

  “I knew that,” said Kurt cheerfully, “so while you were doing all the talking I went ahead and fixed the converter. You sure have mighty hot summers out here!” he continued, mopping his brow.

  “You what?” yelled the pilot, jumping half out of his seat. “You couldn’t even if you did have the know-how. It takes half a day to get the shielding off so you can get at the thing!”

  “Didn’t need to take the shielding off for a simple job like that,” said Kurt. He pointed to a tiny inspection port about four inches in diameter. “I worked through there.”

  “That’s impossible!” interjected the pilot. “You can’t even see the injector through that, let alone get to it to work on!”

  “Shucks,” said Kurt, “a man doesn’t have to see a little gadget like that to fix it. If your hands are trained right, you can feel what’s wrong and set it to rights right away. She won’t jump on you any more either. The syncromesh thrust baffle was a little out of phase so I fixed that, too, while I was at it.”

  Ozaki still didn’t believe it but he hit the controls on faith. The scout bucked under the sudden strong surge of power and then, it’s converter humming sweetly, arced away from the giant sun in a long sweeping curve.

  There was silence in the scout. The two men sat quietly, each immersed in an uneasy welter of troubled speculation.

  “That was close!” said Ozaki finally. “Too close for comfort. Another hour or so and—!” He snapped his fingers.

  Kurt looked puzzled. “Were we in trouble?”

  “Trouble!” snorted Ozaki. “If you hadn’t fixed the converter when you did, we’d be cinders by now!”

  Kurt digested the news in silence. There was something about this superbeing who actually made machines work that bothered him. There was a note of bewilderment in his voice when he asked: “If we were really in danger, why didn’t you fix the converter instead of wasting time talking on that thing?” He gestured toward the space communicator.

  It was Ozaki’s turn to be bewildered. “Fix it?” he said with surprise in his voice. “There aren’t a half a dozen techs on the whole base who know enough about atomics to work on a propulsion unit. When something like that goes out you call Space Rescue and chew your nails until a wrecker can get to you.”

  Kurt crawled into his bunk and lay back staring at the curved ceiling. He had thinking To do, a lot of thinking!

  Three hours later the scout flashed up alongside the great flagship and darted into a landing port. Flight Officer Ozaki was stricken by a horrible thought as he gazed affectionately around his smoothly running ship.

  “Say,” he said to Kurt hesitantly, “would you mind not mentioning that you fixed this crate up for me? If you do, they’ll take it away from me sure. Some captain will get a new gig and I’ll be issued another clunk from Base junkpile.”

  “Sure thing,” said Kurt.

  A moment later the flashing of a green light on the control panel signaled that the pressure in the lock had reached normal.

  “Back in a minute,” said Ozaki. “You wait here.”

  There was a muted hum as the exit hatch swung slowly open. Two guards entered and stood silently beside Kurt as Ozaki left to report to Commander Krogson.

  XIII.

  The battle fleet of War Base Three of Sector Seven of the Galactic Protectorate hung motionless in space twenty thousand kilometers out from Kurt’s home planet. A hundred tired detection techs sat tensely before their screens, sweeping the globe for some sign of energy
radiation. Aside from the occasional light spatters caused by space static, their scopes remained dark. As their reports filtered in to Commander Krogson he became more and more exasperated.

  “Are you positive this is the right planet?” he demanded of Ozaki.

  “No question about it, sir.”

  “Seems funny there’s nothing running down there at all,” said Krogson. “Maybe they spotted us on the way in and cut off power. I’ve got a hunch that—” He broke off in mid sentence as the red top-priority light on the communication panel began to flash. “Get that,”, he said. “Maybe they’ve spotted something at last.”

  The executive officer flipped on the vision screen and the interior of the flagship’s communication room was revealed.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir,” said the tech whose image appeared on the screen, “but a message just came through on the emergency band.”

  “What does it say?”

  The tech looked unhappy. “It’s coded, sir.”

  “Well, decode it!” barked the executive.

  “We can’t,” said the technician diffidently. “Something’s gone wrong with the decoder. The printer is pounding out random groups that don’t make any sense at all.”

  The executive grunted his disgust. “Any idea where the call’s coming from?”

  “Yes, sir; it’s coming in on a tight beam from the direction of Base. Must be from a ship emergency rig, though. Regular hyperspace transmission isn’t directional. Either the ship’s regular rig broke down or the operator is using the beam to keep anybody else from picking up his signal.”

  “Get to work on that decoder. Call hack as soon as you get any results.” The tech saluted and the screen went black.

  “Whatever it is, it’s probably trouble,” said Krogson morosely. “Well, we’d better get on with this job. Take the fleet into atmosphere. It looks as if we are going to have to make a visual check.”

  “Maybe the prisoner can give us a lead,” suggested the executive officer.

  “Good idea. Have him brought in.”

  A moment later Kurt was ushered into the master control room. Krogson’s eyes widened at the sight of his scalp lock and paint.

  “Where in the name of the Galactic Spirit,” he demanded, “did you get that rig?”

  “Don’t you recognize an Imperial Space Marine when you see one?” Kurt answered coldly.

  The guard that had escorted Kurt in made a little twirling motion at his temple with one finger. Krogson took another look and nodded agreement.

  “Sit down, son,” he said in a fatherly tone. “We’re trying to get you home, but you’re going to have to give us a little help before we can do it. You see, we’re not quite sure just where your base is.”

  “I’ll help all I can,” said Kurt.

  “Fine!” said the commander, rubbing his palms together. “Now just where down there do you come from?” He pointed out the vision port to the curving globe that stretched out below.

  Kurt looked down helplessly. “Nothing makes sense, seeing it from up here,” he said apologetically.

  Krogson thought for a moment. “What’s the country like around your base?” he asked.

  “Mostly jungle,” said Kurt. “The garrison is on a plateau though and there are mountains to the north.”

  Krogson turned quickly to his exec. “Did you get that description?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Get all scouts out for a close sweep. As soon as the base is spotted, move the fleet in and hover at forty thousand!”

  Forty minutes later a scout came streaking back.

  “Found it, sir!” said the exec. “Plateau with jungle all around and mountains to the north. There’s a settlement at one end. The pilot saw movement down there but they must have spotted us on our way in. There’s still no evidence of energy radiation. They must have everything shut down.”

  “That’s not good!” said Krogson. “They’ve probably got all their heavy stuff set up waiting for us to sweep over. We’ll have to hit them hard and fast. Did they spot the scout?”

  “Can’t tell, sir.”

  “We’d better assume that they did. Notify all gunnery officers to switch their batteries over to central control. If we come in fast and high and hit them with simultaneous fleet concentration, we can vaporize the whole base before they can take a crack at us.”

  “I’ll send the order out at once, sir,” said the executive officer.

  The fleet pulled into tight formation and headed toward the Imperial base. They were halfway there when the fleet gunnery officer entered the control room and said apologetically to Commander Krogson, “Excuse me, sir, but I’d like to suggest a trial run. Fleet concentration is a tricky thing and if something went haywire—we’d be sitting ducks for the ground batteries.”

  “Good idea,” said Krogson thoughtfully. “There’s too much at stake to have anything go wrong. Select an equivalent target and we’ll make a pass.”

  The fleet was now passing over a towering mountain chain.

  “How about that bald spot down there?” said the Exec, pointing to a rocky expanse that jutted out from the side of one of the towering peaks.

  “Good enough,” said Krogson.

  “All ships on central control!” reported the gunnery officer.

  “On target!” reported the tech on the tracking screen. “One. Two. Three. Four—”

  Kurt stood by the front observation port watching the ground far below sweep by. He had been listening intently but what had been said didn’t make sense. There had been something about batteries—the term was alien to him—and something about the garrison. He decided to ask the commander what it was all about but the intentness with which Krogson was watching the tracking screen deterred him. Instead he gazed moodily down at the mountains below him.

  “Five. Six. Seven. Ready. FIRE!”

  A savage shudder ran through the great ship as her ground-pointed batteries blasted in unison. Seconds went by and then suddenly the rocky expanse on the shoulder of the mountain directly below twinkled as blinding flashes of actinic light danced across it. Then as Kurt watched, great masses of rock and earth moved slowly skyward from the center of the spurting nests of tangled flame. Still slowly, as if buoyed up by the thin mountain air, the debris began to fall back again until it was lost from sight in quick rising mushrooms of jet-black smoke. Kurt turned and looked back toward Commander Krogson. Batteries must be the things that had torn the mountains below apart. And garrison—there was only one garrison!

  “I ordered fleet fire,” barked Krogson. “This ship was the only one that cut loose. What happened?”

  “Just a second, sir,” said the executive officer, “I’ll try and find out.” He was busy for a minute on the intercom system. “The other ships were ready, sir,” he reported finally. “Their guns were all switched over to our control but no impulse came through. Central fire control must be on the blink!” He gestured toward a complex bank of equipment that occupied one entire corner of the control room.

  Commander Krogson said a few appropriate words. When he reached the point where he was beginning to repeat himself, he paused and stood in frozen silence for a good thirty seconds.

  “Would you mind getting a fire control tech in here to fix that obscenity bank?” he asked in a voice that put everyone’s teeth on edge.

  The other seemed to have something to say but he was having trouble getting it out.

  “Well?” said Krogson.

  “Prime Base grabbed our last one two weeks ago. There isn’t another left with the fleet.”

  “Doesn’t look like much to me,” said Kurt as he strolled over to examine the bank of equipment.

  “Get away from there!” roared the commander. “We’ve got enough trouble without you making things worse.” Kurt ignored him and began to open inspection ports.

  “Guard!” yelled Krogson. “Throw that man out of here!”

  Ozaki interrupted timidly. “Beg pardon, commander, but he
can fix it if anybody can.”

  Krogson whirled on the flight officer. “How do you know?”

  Ozaki caught himself just in time. If he talked too much he w-as likely to lose the scout that Kurt had fixed up for him.

  “Because he . . . eh . . . talks like a tech,” he concluded lamely.

  Krogson looked at Kurt dubiously. “I guess there’s no harm in giving it a trial,” he said finally. “Give him a set of tools and turn him loose. Maybe for once a miracle will happen.”

  “First,” said Kurt, “I’ll need the wiring diagrams for this thing.”

  “Get them!” barked the commander and an orderly scuttled out of the control, headed aft.

  “Next you’ll have to give me a general idea of what it’s supposed to do,” continued Kurt.

  Krogson turned to the gunnery officer. “You’d better handle this.”

  When the orderly returned with the circuit diagrams, they were spread out on the plotting table and the two men bent over them.

  “Got it!” said Kurt at last and sauntered over to the control bank. Twenty minutes later he sauntered back again.

  “She’s all right now,” he said pleasantly.

  The gunnery officer quickly scanned his testing board. Not a single red trouble light was on. He turned to Commander Krogson in amazement.

  “I don’t know how he did it, sir, but the circuits are all clear now.”

  Krogson stared at Kurt with a look of new respect in his eyes. “What were you down there, chief maintenance tech?”

  Kurt laughed. “Me? I was never chief anything. I spent most of my time on hunting detail.”

  The commander digested that in silence for a moment. “Then how did you become so familiar with fire-control gear?”

  “Studied it in school like everyone else does. There wasn’t anything much wrong with that thing anyway except a couple of sticking relays.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” interrupted the executive officer, “but should we make another trial run?”

  “Are you sure the bank is in working order?”

  “Positive, sir!”

  “Then we’d better make straight for that base. If this boy here is a fair example of what they have down there, their defenses may be too tough for us to crack if we give them a chance to get set up!”