Manhattan Transfer

by John E. Stith

  Abby gave the captain the additional direction.

  The captain's eye–stalk twitched as she looked at Matt. Suddenly she gave what Matt felt was a thumb's up sign and he said to himself, that had better not be the finger. The captain chattered to her crew and to Abby.

  "She got the message," Abby said.

  After some more chattering, Abby added, "I'm pretty sure I'm understanding things right. This crew really is essentially a civil service team. They've been trained to save cities, not to wage war, and that's why they've resisted. As you pointed out, their mission cannot proceed for now, and since they're finally convinced that we're military experts, they're willing to follow orders."

  Matt nodded, feeling he was anything but an expert in fighting a space battle. He was careful not to show his lack of confidence.

  Within minutes the displays showed about a dozen shuttlecraft move into space near the Archie's ship. The shuttlecraft paralleled the ship's course.

  "Good," Matt said. "Now tell her that if nothing else we try works, our last resort will be to ram the planet shaper."

  Abby swung back to relay the message, did a double–take, and then turned again to the computer.

  A minute later Abby said, "She says, 'You are right. This is our fault. We are prepared to die, but what about the cities?'"

  "Tell her we'll have to decide that later."

  When the exchange was complete, Rudy said softly, "Are you dead serious about that possibility?"

  Matt shook his head. He spoke loud enough that he was sure his voice would carry to Julie's minivid and to the audience below. "One, I don't even know if that would be effective. Two, I'd have to have permission from the mayor. Three, mainly I wanted the Archie captain to know that we consider it an alternative. I have to assume that if there's any weapon or idea they've been holding back, they'll be honest about it now. And, frankly, I'm not sure how we would force them to do it. If they're all going to die, it's not like we have a lot of leverage."

  Matt picked up the walkie–talkie and said, "I need to talk to the mayor."

  #

  Dorine answered the call instantly. "Mayor here."

  "It's reality check time," came Matt Sheehan's voice. "If I'm doing things you don't approve of, you need to speak up."

  "I know how to manage a city, not fight a war. It may seem like the same thing sometimes, but it's not. If I see anything that I can't live with, I'll get on the horn, but I'm not about to undermine your authority at this point. You've got my blessing."

  "Thank you, mayor. About the possibility of ramming. As much as we want to save the Earth, I don't know that we could justify killing the only remnants of dozens of other civilizations. They're victims as much as we are. I wish we had time to contact more of the other cities. It could be one of them has a weapon that would do that job, but they've been unable to use it because it would destroy their own city. But we've got hours, not days or months."

  Dorine swallowed hard. "Do what you have to if there's a way to save Earth. I trust your judgment."

  "Thanks."

  #

  Matt put down the walkie–talkie and took a deep breath.

  Rudy raised his eyebrows. "So, what next?"

  "I don't know." Matt turned to Abby. "While we're thinking, tell the captain to take four of the shuttlecraft, move them to a safe distance from the planet shaper, and turn their weapons into the hole we made earlier. Have them keep them on until we tell them to stop."

  Abby nodded.

  "All right," Matt said. "We've gotten a lot of suggestions from Manhattan. Some of them may not be feasible, some may be ineffective. We've got to pick something that seems to have the best chances."

  Rudy looked at a list he'd been maintaining. "A lot of them fall into general categories. Using weapons against the planet shaper. Trying to trick it into bypassing Earth. Using the bubble material as a barrier."

  Bobby Joe looked at the screen. Matt followed his gaze and saw four of the shuttlecraft had moved close to one another at a distance from the planet shaper.

  "Abby, get them to show us a closeup of that hole if you can."

  Moments later another screen showed just that. It was impossible to tell if any significant damage was being done. All they could see was a pulsating red glare reflecting from surfaces near where the lasers were striking.

  Bobby Joe said, "The planet shaper's weapons seem more effective than the shuttlecraft lasers. They're probably intended as weapons rather than cutting tools. I wonder if there's a way we can turn the planet shaper's own weapons against itself."

  "Right," Rudy said. "Huge mirrors." He said it with a sarcastic tone, but as soon as he fell silent, he and Bobby Joe looked at each other with widening eyes.

  "Maybe it is possible," Rudy said. "The bubble material they use to form domes over cities. If the Archies can form some corner reflectors, maybe we could bounce back whatever they're projecting."

  "Explain," said Matt.

  "A corner reflector is three mirrors intersecting at right angles. Anything hitting one of the mirrors is bounced right back where it came from."

  "Right," said Bobby Joe. "And even if we don't destroy the planet shaper, we could sap its energy, and that might provide protection for our shuttlecraft to get closer."

  "How do we get the silver surface?" asked Matt.

  "We might not need it," Bobby Joe said. "It could be that whatever beam they're using would be reflected from the bubble material itself. Or it could be the Archies have some metal they can eject. Have one of the shuttlecraft use its laser to boil the stuff and then ram the bubble material against it. If we're lucky, it'll be like dropping liquid solder on glass—it'll form a thin flat coating. It won't be anything near an optical grade mirror, but it might be enough to reflect a significant fraction of whatever hits it."

  Matt said, "Go for it. Have Abby relay whatever instructions you think best. I'll be considering what to try next."

  "Next?" said Bobby Joe.

  "Yes, next. We can't wait around until we find out if this works. We don't have time. We have to get another plan moving, and another, and another. If we're incredibly lucky, one of them will work. If a miracle happens and two of them work, then maybe we're guilty of overkill. But I don't think that's very likely."

  Bobby Joe and Rudy got busy feeding Abby directions for the Archie captain, and Matt took Rudy's list and started examining it.

  Within a couple of minutes it was apparent that the Archies did have some non–essential equipment that they could sacrifice for the raw materials. The captain ordered some of the crew to eject it so the shuttlecraft could move it where they needed it. Fortunately, both the planet shaper and the Archie's ship had finished the initial acceleration phase and were headed toward Earth at a constant velocity, so loose materials would fly side by side.

  As soon as Bobby Joe was free, Matt said, "I guess when we have one tool, suddenly every job seems to call for the same tool. This bubble material—we could use a similar technique for making a huge mirror. The lasers on the shuttlecraft. How much heat do they generate compared to the same area of plain sunlight?"

  "I don't know. I might be able to make an estimate. Why?"

  "Because if we could make a curved mirror that focused the sunlight over a few square kilometers, or even a hundred square kilometers, would that be more effective than the lasers?"

  "Even on Earth you can light a cigarette with a parabolic mirror that's probably no wider than your hand. Maybe it would be effective. Like I said, the reflectivity won't be as high as a good mirror, but we could more than make up for than in area. We'd want a parabolic mirror with a very long focal length so it could focus everything that hits it into a point, say, a hundred kilometers away from it. Let me give it a try. The Archies may not be trained as fighters, but the shuttle pilots manipulate the bubble material pretty well."

  "Have at it."

  A sparkling on one of the screens caught Matt's attention. One of the Archie shuttlecraft
had already ejected some bubble material. As Matt watched, the ship slowly formed three planes, making the corner of a cube. Apparently the bubble material in its flimsy state stuck to itself. Finally one of the shuttlecraft flashed the bright light that triggered the bubble material to solidify, and the surfaces took on the appearance of rigid glass.

  The shuttlecraft trained its laser on a shiny unidentifiable object. The laser seemed to be pulsing on and off. The object began to glow a dull red as it slowly collapsed into a molten sphere that spun at a leisurely rate.

  A minute later, the Archie shuttle gripped the clear box corner and accelerated toward the molten metal. The globe of metal hit directly at the junction of the three planes and seemed to explode. When the view was clear again, at least half of each of the three bubble planes was no longer clear, but instead was shiny and metallic in appearance. They had deposited at least a crude mirror surface.

  "Yes!" shouted Bobby Joe.

  Another shuttle was in the process of constructing a second corner reflector. Farther away, two shuttles were apparently starting to stretch a huge sheet of bubble material into a gigantic flat plane. The process took ten or fifteen minutes that felt like hours. When the shuttles finished, one of them accelerated slowly against the center of the plane and the perimeter of the bubble plane fell slowly behind as though someone had thrown a rock at a sheet. The curvature didn't look right, though. It was more cone–shaped than parabolic.

  The shuttle backed away from the bubble material, which was now drifting slowly off course. The ship maneuvered around and came at the bubble material from the opposite side and started accelerating against the center. The bubble material began a slow transformation from convex to concave, and at just the moment that it finally seemed to Matt to be in a parabolic shape, the other shuttle set off the flash that cured the bubble material and locked it into shape. The curved sheet was so large that it was taller than the planet shaper.

  Several shuttlecraft had been heating metal to coat the surface. A trio of shuttles got behind the curved surface and pushed it through space toward the molten globs. The reflective spots formed as molten metal collided with the bubble material were enormous, probably because the metal spread into a very thin layer. As the shuttles were finishing the parabolic mirror, Matt gave commands for two other shuttles.

  The first shuttle to complete fabricating its corner reflector began accelerating toward the planet shaper, keeping itself hidden behind the reflector. It got within what Matt figured was a range likely to cause the planet shaper to decide an intruder was present. At the same time, the second shuttle with a corner reflector started toward the planet shaper, also.

  Sparks flew from the closest reflector. Seconds later two things were obvious. One, the planet shaper's weapon had vaporized some of the mirror finish on the corner reflector, and two, a significant amount of energy had been reflected back to the planet shaper. A dull spot showed on the planet shaper's surface where the hull was no longer shiny.

  The planet shaper fired at the second corner reflector. Again, material vaporized from the reflector surface, and another dull spot formed on the planet shaper's hull.

  "The large reflector is just about ready," Rudy said.

  Matt looked at the screen Rudy was watching. A huge mirror a little like the ones in flashlights hung in space, blocking a quarter of the sky and reflecting a distorted star field. "Good. Have the captain warn the shuttles to stay out of the path, and get that thing pointed at the planet shaper."

  Abby passed on the instructions. Guided by shuttlecraft at its edges, the mirror began to turn slowly.

  One of the corner reflectors took another hit, and then the other one, too.

  "I've got an idea," Matt said. He turned to Abby. "Ask the captain if they know where the sensors are. How does that thing see?"

  As Abby phrased the question, Matt turned to Rudy and Bobby Joe. "If we can put its eyes out, that might be almost as good as destroying it. What if we take molten metal like the Archies used to coat the mirrors and just throw that at the sensors?"

  "Could work," Bobby Joe said. "Slick."

  "It has sensors at the farthest point out on each of the clover leaves," Abby reported seconds later.

  Matt explained what he wanted them to try, and Abby gave the instructions.

  "Oh, no," Rudy said.

  Matt looked up at the screen. Seconds earlier it had shown an Archie shuttlecraft and a corner reflector. The bubble material was still there, but it was nearly clear again. The planet shaper must have used enough energy to vaporize most of the reflecting layer, and the shuttlecraft hiding behind it. A bigger dull gray area covered a section of the planet shaper hull, so it had paid a price for the damage.

  "Have them build two more corner reflectors," said Matt, "And then just toss them at the planet shaper without using a shuttle to guide them. If we're lucky, the planet shaper will damage itself even more."

  Minutes later on another screen, an Archie shuttlecraft launched a large mass of metal at the planet shaper. As the mass moved closer to the planet shaper, the shuttlecraft trained its laser on the mass, heating it to incandescence. Twice the shuttle shifted position, apparently to keep the mass on track for its target.

  The second corner reflector flared. The shuttlecraft that had been behind it was now retreating, undamaged.

  Abby said, "The captain says the large mirror is almost set to focus light on the planet shaper."

  Matt watched the screen as the enormous mirror began to slow to a halt. In an adjacent screen two more shuttles were building corner reflectors.

  "All right!" Bobby Joe shouted.

  The screen displaying the planet shaper showed a brilliant spot of light reflecting from the surface. The spot drifted across the surface of the hull. At first, Matt thought the line trailing behind it was an artifact of bright light on his retinae, but seconds later he was sure he was wrong. The intense heat had actually damaged the surface of the ship. Thank God.

  The thanks were premature, because suddenly the huge mirror began to turn again as the surface material began exploding off the front of the clear backing. Obviously the planet shaper was firing on the huge mirror. Within seconds, the mirror's reflective layer had been decimated. And the planet shaper kept firing at the bubble material as the blasts forced it farther and farther away.

  About the same time, the molten glob of metal launched by a lone shuttlecraft came closer and closer until it hit the outer edge of one of the cloverleaves. It splattered against the surface, flattening out and clinging. A huge irregular blotch marred what had been a shiny mirror surface.

  "Yes!" Bobby Joe shouted. "Even if we don't destroy this thing completely, it's going to know it was in one hell of a fight."

  Matt glanced at the overhead screen. The Earth had grown to a large blue–white ball. They needed far more than to just give the planet shaper a good fight.

  The shuttlecraft near the huge reflector started to refinish the reflective layer, but it had been engaged in the task no more than a few seconds when the shuttlecraft suddenly began to disintegrate.

  "Oh, God," Abby said softly.

  Another molten glob of metal was speeding toward a different cloverleaf, but the planet shaper was learning. It blasted the mass to loose atoms before it reached the surface of the ship. Matt was amazed and gratified to see that the mass still managed to pepper the planet shaper's hull. Dispersed or not, it had still been traveling at an enormous velocity.

  Abruptly, the loose corner reflectors and the remains of the parabolic mirror shot out ahead of the planet shaper and the Archies' ship. Both ships had started to decelerate as they neared Earth.

  Matt turned to Julie and said, "I need to know if the mayor will authorize our trying to ram it. I still don't know if the risk is justified, but I need to know if it's an option."

  Julie turned pale as she acknowledged the request and started talking over the walkie–talkie.

  The Earth grew rapidly on the wall scre
en as the Archies' ship followed the planet shaper into a high earth orbit. At the same time Matt felt more tired than ever before and he managed to continue functioning anyway.

  From a safer range, another shuttlecraft continued to direct its weapon into the exposed portion of the planet shaper's interior.

  Without warning, the planet shaper began to shoot a series of flares into the Earth's atmosphere, starting over the tan and white shape of Africa. Without stopping its deadly hail, the planet shaper suddenly turned its weapons on the shuttlecraft.

  "God damn," Bobby Joe said as he stared at the screen showing the shuttlecraft disintegrating. "It can't get much worse than—"

  "Don't say it!" Matt snapped.

  The hail of flares continued shooting down toward Africa as suddenly the bridge shuddered. The Archie captain began chattering to her crew.

  Matt swung back to Abby. "What's happening?"

  Seconds later Abby said. "We've been hit. Apparently the planet shaper has finally decided that this ship is where all these shuttlecraft are coming from. The captain is pulling back, out of range."

  The bridge shuddered again.

  Matt felt a metallic taste in his mouth as he waited for information.

  A tinkling bell started to sound. The captain chattered some more. Her eye–stalk trembled.

  Seconds later Abby turned to Matt and gave him the captain's assessment. "The second blast hit part of the propulsion system. They can repair it, but probably not in time to get far enough away. The ship is limited to very low power."

  Bobby Joe said softly, "So now all that thing has to do is move in for the kill, and then finish destroying the Earth at its leisure."

  Chapter 20

  Enclosure

  "Oh, God," said Abby. "Now we can't even try to ram them."