by Colin Kapp
‘It was one of Rance’s so-called “disaster ships”—though I’ve come to suspect that their function is to cause disasters, not to alleviate them.’
‘Didn’t you know of this when you asked for it?’
‘I didn’t ask for it. It just arrived. When I found out what sort of equipment it carried, I complained to Director Vestevaal. He went immediately to Free Trade Central to demand its withdrawal.’
‘Hmm!’ Di Irons nodded thoughtfully. ‘And I take it that somebody couldn’t wait to see it go peacefully. Your friend the Imaiz, perhaps?’
‘I’ve no evidence,’ said Ren. ‘But he knew it for what it was and its demolition has a characteristic thoroughness.’
‘That’s agreed,’ said Di Irons, looking around at the widespread damage. ‘And in the circumstances I don’t think we shall hear. much from Rance about her loss, especially if Director Vestevaal’s already protesting about it at Free Trade Central. But more than the ship went here. A lot of highly valuable spaceport installation went with it. When the Galactic Spaceports commission learns of it, the repercussions are going to be grave. I’m going to be under pressure to produce some good answers. Frankly, I don’t have the expertise in outworld technology to produce those answers. But you do. And you’ve the additional advantage of knowing both the Imaiz and the pattern of life in Anharitte, neither of which an outworld investigator would know. Therefore I’m willing to strike a bargain with you.’
‘What sort of bargain?’
‘We both suspect it was the Imaiz who destroyed this ship. I want to know how much evidence against the Imaiz could be gathered by an outworld inquiry into the disaster.’
‘You choose your words most carefully, Prefect.’
‘In this instance I’ve a good reason to do so.’
‘And what have I to gain from the exercise?’
‘Give me some good answers, Ren, and I might forget to file any charges against yourself or the Company.’
‘I’ll willingly try, though your terms don’t give me much option. But I’ll need information. How cooperative can I expect to find the spaceport staff?’
‘They themselves’ are in default for permitting an armed warcraft to remain docked at their facility beyond the recognized refueling time. Therefore their careers are equally in my hands. I suspect you’ll find them very cooperative indeed.’
Pictor Don, the spaceport’s emergency commander, spread his hands resignedly.
‘I can assure you, Tito, that outside sabotage is quite out of the question. Nobody could have gotten through without detection. Because of the permanent danger to personnel around ’ the landing bowls, the whole area is monitored by radar. The radar overscan extends well beyond the spaceport perimeter. The computer constantly oversees all activity in the area and throws up alarm signals for any potentially dangerous or unusual event.’
‘What other defenses have you?’
‘Mainly the fences. The first and second fences form a corridor manned by a patrol with guard dogs. Then there’s an electrified fence inside that and the inner one’s a barbed barrier. It would take a very clever person indeed to get through that lot.’
‘We happen to suspect a very clever person. What I’m trying to establish is—did he indeed get through or was the blast an accident? What about the gates?’
‘Only two—both remotely controlled and responding only to the controller’s direct orders. He has to satisfy himself by computer verification of ident cards and the vision link that I the person asking for admission has the necessary authority to enter.’
‘And did he give clearance to anyone at a time reasonably close to the blowup?’
‘No. There were no admissions for at least four hours before the blowup occurred.’
‘Then it would have to be through the fence. Has the whole perimeter been checked?’
‘Electrical checks have been carried out. Nothing was found. Physical examination of all the wire on the perimeter will take a little time.’
‘Then let me have the answers as soon as you can,’ said Ren. ‘If somebody penetrated that fence, I want to know how. Did your radar scan tell you nothing?’
‘The watch computer signaled nothing unusual.’
‘How critical is the watch computer?’
‘Sufficient for normal purposes.’
‘But does it discriminate between different types of radar returns?’
‘Necessarily so. Frequently animals from the plains stray near to the outer fence and trigger a minor alert. Also some birds and small animals actually live out on the bowls. The computer has been programed to reject the movement of small creatures and to respond mainly to the approach of something the size of a cushion-craft or one of the tracked tenders.’
‘Then how does it function for personnel protection on the bowls?’
‘It’s spectrum filtered to give maximum response to metallic objects while remaining relatively insensitive to organics and nonmetals. Any crews working on the bowls will naturally be wearing thermo-reflective suits and these give a very good radar return.’
‘So it is possible for an unsuited man to have walked across the bowls without the computer’s classifying him as an object to be reported?’
‘It’s possible, but I see the point as rather academic. Nobody could damage a battle cruiser with less than about a hundred kilos of s.h.e. explosive. I’d seriously doubt that somebody broke the fence and carried that weight across the bowls on foot. Perhaps a trained man might do it—but I don’t believe it happened. I think they’d have had to use a vehicle—and if they’d done so the computer would have spotted it and sounded the alarm.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Ren, ‘I’d like to know if there was anything on the radar scan below the computer’s indicating threshold. Do you tape a record?’
‘Of course.’ Pictor Don shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ll have a replay set up in the operations room. If you want my opinion—it’s a waste of time.’
‘What are you looking for, Ren?’ The stern and thoughtful prefect was shadowing Ren closely, listening to every syllable of his investigation. ‘I’d have thought Don’s evidence that there was no penetration of the fences was pretty conclusive.’
‘Not conclusive enough. If it did happen we need to know now, not have it thrown up during some outworld inquiry. All defenders and all defense systems have blind spots. If someone has the wit and the ability to figure just where these blind spots are, they form a positive advantage to the attacker. A bit of ingenuity coupled with the right know-how should produce a method of attack the defenders won’t expect because they know it to be impossible. Our prime suspect in this case is a recognized master of impossible events and is also a considerable technician. I can’t see that dogs, a few wire fences and a radar scan need be any deterrent to the Imaiz.’
‘There’s been some talk of rockets,’ said Di Irons. ‘Couldn’t Dion have used one without having to penetrate the fence?’
‘He may well have the capability at Magda, but that wasn’t the way it was done. As I see the evidence, the ship was toppled, as you’ve already said, by an s.h.e. charge placed under a stabilizer. But that couldn’t in itself have initiated the entire chain of disasters that followed. Almost certainly the ship was toppled upon a further line of explosive charges, and the direction of the ship’s fall was calculated to insure that those charges would do the maximum damage. It was an exercise in fine mathematics, undertaken by someone who had a very clear idea of the working layout of such a battle cruiser.’
‘From which you conclude?’
‘That the operation was carried out by a competent outworlder—someone familiar with space constructions. And it would have taken time and careful measurement to place those charges accurately. Whoever did it must have worked on the bowl under cover of darkness and had a pretty shrewd idea at he would not be picked up by the radar monitor. That’s an assembly of knowledge and skills very difficult to match. I think that Dion must be a well-trai
ned saboteur—in addition his other talents.’
Di Irons was not yet convinced.
‘If I understand Pictor Don correctly it would have taken at a hundred kilos of explosive just to topple the ship. If now saying that further charges were laid—they must up to a considerable extra weight of explosive. All this to be moved through the fence and brought across at least a kilometer of landing bowls—without detection.’
‘I know very little about explosives,’ said Ren. ‘But I’d doubt less than two hundred kilos of s.h.e. would have done the trick.’
‘And brought in without using a vehicle? Do you suppose they used mules or magic?’ The prefect was sarcastic.
‘I don’t know how it was done, but I’m willing to bet we’ll find a few answers on the below-threshold level of the radar records.’
The radar overscan, untrimmed by the computer, reflected considerable movement of wildlife outside the perimeter fence. The false alarms would have been continual had not spectrum filtering been employed. In contrast, the casual movements of spaceport personnel and vehicles were easily distinguishable by the heightened radar responses to the various metallic substances they carried. It was at about this level of discrimination that the computer operated.
Pictor Don replayed the scan at its original speed for the two hours prior to the blowup. He and Ren concentrated fully on the unedited replay screen, while Di Irons fretted in the background, unable to comprehend the screen’s symbolism. All of the first hour of the replay and half of the second passed without producing any information of obvious interest. Suddenly Ren gave a cry.
‘Southeast corner—beyond the shadow of the freighter on pad eight—something is moving on the bowls.’
There was no doubt of the fact. Emerging from the radar shadow of the freighter, already well within the wire, two images sped across the bowls toward the doomed ship. The radar responses were weak, well below the computer’s preset threshold. The moving forms gave no clue as to their form or composition.
Pictor Don ran marker blips across the screen to measure the velocity of the moving points. He frowned at the resulting calculation.
‘Slightly up on fifteen kilometers an hour,’ he said in puzzlement. ‘Men running perhaps, but certainly not men carrying two hundred kilos of deadweight.’
‘Perhaps horses?’ asked Di Irons.
Don shook his head. ‘Not enough mass for horses.’
‘Is there much metal present?’ asked Ren.
‘Some, but it’s not very distinct. More like a grid than a solid. Certainly not enough mass to be a vehicle. The computer wouldn’t be able to distinguish between it and the oxide glaze on the bowls themselves.’
‘Then what the devil can have carried them across the field at a speed like that?’
‘Did you ever think of wizardry?’ Di Irons had the faintest smile of mischief around his grizzled mouth.
‘I don’t care for wizardry,’ said Ren. ‘There’s a physical explanation for all this. Dion-daizan’s no more of a wizard than I am.’
In less than three minutes the two dots had moved from the perimeter across the intervening half kilometer to the foot of the threatened Rance ship. Their passage must have been effectively silent—they appeared to make no effort to avoid the lock-watch who would have been aroused by the sound of an approaching vehicle.
‘Were they invisible also?’ asked Di Irons.
When the dots stopped under the radar shadow of the ship, the screen picture became confused by the sheer mass against the returns were being measured. In less than a minute, however, the dots separated themselves and streaked back toward the perimeter fence, moving even faster than before. Soon they were lost behind the shadow of the freighter on pad eight and the scene closed down to an apparent stillness as the time approached the moment of blowup.
‘Well, we still don’t know what got in, but at least we know where,’ said Ren. ‘Let’s go and take a closer look.’
On the southeast perimeter, where the bulk of the freighter on pad eight stood squarely between them and the damaged radar tower. Ren examined the wire. There was little wonder the break had not been detected before. Had he not had a suspicion of what to look for, he would not have found it for himself. The wires had been cut to a level sufficient to admit something not much larger than a man. Every single strand had subsequently been neatly butt-welded to form a virtually invisible repair. Any competent technician could have done it—given the right equipment and the necessary time.
‘But we had guard-dog patrols between the outer fences,’ objected Pictor Don, when the fact was pointed out.
‘Who mans the patrols?’ asked Ren.
‘One of the so-called societies—very reliable.’
‘Perhaps! But for most of the night there was it withdrawal of society services from all matters affecting outworlders. In effect, there was a period when the Imaiz could move unopposed on whatever course he chose. He might even have been able to enlist society aid. I’m reasonably certain that if he chose to cut these wires last night, the dogs would have been conveniently elsewhere.’
‘But why should the societies cooperate with him in this way?’ Pictor Don was perplexed.
‘Because,’ said Ren, ‘Dion’s probably the only force standing between Roget as it is—and eventual domination by Rance. I know this. The societies know it and I suspect my Lord Di Irons knows it also. I may be an outworlder, but I’ve heard enough about Rance’s mailed fist in the universe to know that, given a free choice, I would have been out there last night holding that wire open for Dion to enter.’
Ren turned away from the wire and wandered into the scrub edging the surrounding plain. Shortly he came back and addressed Di Irons.
‘Well, Prefect, I’m ready to answer your questions.’
Di Irons compressed his mouth under his beard. The eyes that met Ren’s were full of comprehension, edged with a slight smile.
‘What about that radar record?’ asked the Prefect.
‘What radar record? It must have been destroyed in the blowup.’
‘And the wire?’
‘Could never have been disturbed. Technology on Roget obviously isn’t far enough advanced to permit a gas-shielded electric butt-weld to be made.’
‘And the blowup?’
‘Who knows,’ said Ren, ‘Accidents can always happen on an overarmed man-of-war. I think the point should be made most strongly to the Spaceports Commission. They must be encouraged to take far greater care of ships when operating on foreign soil. Otherwise it might prove inconvenient to have a spaceport so near Anharitte.’
‘And we can positively rule out outside intervention?’
‘I can think of no way in which a man or perhaps two men with neither beast nor vehicle could travel half a kilometer in three minutes with at least two hundred kilos of dead weight. Such an idea smacks of wizardry.’
‘Which we all know doesn’t exist,’ said Di Irons. ‘You know, Tito, I’ve a feeling I’ve misjudged you. You’ve a depth of perception I would not have associated with your mercenary profession. My report will follow the lines of your summary—and you and Pictor Don can sign a testimony to its accuracy. You’ve proven to me that there could have been no outside intervention. But strictly off the record—and since you don’t admit Dion’s a wizard—how do you imagine the thing could have been done?’
Ren nodded and turned out toward the brush.
‘Come over here. Do you see those marks in the dust? What do you suppose made those?’
‘That’s very strange. I don’t think I’ve seen the like of them before. Do you suppose snakes—’
‘I imagine they’re snake tracks,’ said Ren, tongue in cheek. ‘But they bear a strong resemblance to the tracks of a device I saw used on Terra.’
Di Irons straightened as a society runner approached. The had come around the perimeter from the gate to hand him a message form. The fellow’s exertions underscored the urgency with which he had been dispatched. The prefec
t scanned the paper anxiously and handed it to Pictor Don. Both men seemed tremendously upset.
‘Trouble?’ asked Ren.
The form was passed to him. With mounting disbelief he read the message.
TRANSGALACTIC NEWSFAX (:) RANCE SPOKESMEN HAVE REVEALED THAT IN ORDER TO CONTAIN WIDESPREAD CIVIL DISORDER ON ROGET ESPECIALLY ANHARITTE THEY ARE DISPATCHING THIRTY DISASTER SHIPS IMMEDIATELY (:) ANHARITTE SPACEPORT HAS ALREADY BEEN ATTACKED BY RIOTERS AND A RANCE GOODWILL SHIP DESTROYED (:) THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT IS NOW REPORTED POWERLESS TO COUNTER INSURRECTION (:) FIRST TASK OF RANCE DISASTER TEAMS WILL BE TO ESTABLISH CIVIL ORDER AND TO REMAIN IN CONTROL UNTIL DEMOCRATIC LIBERTY IS REESTABLISHED (:) MESSAGE ENDS (:)
‘Get me an FTL communications link with Free Trade Central,’ said Ren angrily when he had absorbed the shock. ‘I’ll get the director to blow this scheme apart right from the top—at Galactic Federation Headquarters if necessary.’
‘That may not be easy,’ said Pictor Don unhappily. ‘Our FTL link to anywhere is routed through the relay terminal on Rance.’
‘Damn!’ Ren looked across the blasted spaceport where even now the smoke trails persisted over the scene of devastation. The enormity of Rance’s fabrication made his head spin, but his heart was seized with the cold damp of fear.
If Alek Hardun’s murder wagon had been regarded as a goodwill vessel, Ren hated to think what thirty openly operating disaster ships would bring. Despite his increasing respect for the resourceful Dion-daizan he knew that salvation this time depended on the rapid acquisition of an armed spacefleet. Presumably not even the wizard of Anharitte could produce that. Or could he? At the moment Ren knew only from the trackmarks in the dust that the Imaiz possessed at least two bicycles.
SIXTEEN
The sky was beginning to darken with the approach of rain as Ren returned from the spaceport. The sullen brooding clouds fitted his mood. Di Irons had offered him a horse but, still sore from his last encounter with one of these magnificent beasts, Ren had declined. Nor had he accepted Pictor Don’s offer of the loan of a cushion-craft. More than anything Ren wanted to be alone. He needed time to think.