High Marshal Kurowski sat in the geometric center of the table. Flanking him, in descending order of precedence towards the end of the table were the Chief of Computation, the Chief of Intelligence, the Prime Logistics Officer, the Chief of Psychological Warfare, the Civil Coordinator, and the eight Theater Commanders—no one under the rank of full General.
No one, that is, except Commander Jay Palmer, who was perched nervously on the edge of a chair at the extreme left end of the table—a position of zero precedence, protocol-wise—and who was dazedly trying to figure out exactly what a lowly Fleet Commander was doing in such exalted company.
The only thing he knew for sure was that his presence, like the meeting itself, was Dirk Lingo’s doing….
As the Solarians and the official party had been about to enter Pentagon City, Palmer, who had been respectfully trailing behind the high brass, who in turn were confusedly following the Solarians, saw that Lingo had stopped, turned, and said something to Kurowski. To judge by the High Marshal’s expression, he was exasperated by whatever the Solarian had said, and so it was with considerable uneasiness that Palmer approached him when the High Marshal called him over.
“This is Fleet Commander Palmer,” Kurowski said to Lingo, studiously ignoring Palmer and pointedly not introducing the Solarian to him.
“How do you do, Commander Palmer,” Lingo said pleasantly. “Sorry about your Fleet.”
Palmer started. It was not at all like Kurowski to talk so loosely about a recent defeat with someone as questionable as Lingo.
Then he saw that the High Marshal was at least as upset as he was.
“Mr. Lingo wanted to meet you,” Kurowski said quickly, trying to brush aside the mysterious breach of security. “I don’t have the faintest idea why….”
“Just thought it would be a good idea to meet a field officer,” Lingo said. “Someone below General Officer rank, someone fresh from battle….”
“How in hell did you know that?” Kurowski finally exploded. “You couldn’t….”
“Let’s just call it an educated guess,” Lingo said with a little shrug. “The important point is that I feel that it is necessary that a representative field officer be present at the General Staff Meeting, and that Commander Palmer will do as well as anyone else.”
“That’s out of the question,” Kurowski snapped. “No one under the rank of General is ever admitted to a General Staff Meeting. It’s against all the….”
“I don’t hold the rank of General,” Lingo said, a slight chill coming into his voice. “Neither do any of my friends. Does that mean that the meeting has to be called off?”
“Of course not,” spluttered Kurowski. “That’s an entirely different matter. You’re not under Confederation discipline. Commander Palmer is. No junior officer….”
“Commander Palmer will attend the meeting,” Lingo said very quietly, “or there will be no meeting.” There was a calm, confident, not-quite-arrogant finality in Lingo’s voice.
“But….” Kurowski muttered, obviously looking for a way to back out gracefully, rather than under duress.
Lingo smiled. “If it will make you feel any better, Marshal Kurowski,” he said, warmth suddenly returning to his voice, “why not consider Commander Palmer my guest at the meeting? That should satisfy your sense of protocol.”
“Very well,” Kurowski said stiffly. “Commander Palmer, you are dismissed until the General Staff Meeting.”
As Palmer saluted, and turned to leave, Lingo stared directly at him for one frozen moment. The Solarian’s greatgreen eyes seemed to be laughing at some private joke. Finally, Lingo gave him a crooked grin and an almost imperceptible wink. Somehow, he could not imagine why, that look had reminded Palmer of the strange, calm staring expression in the eyes of Max Bergstrom and Linda Dortin as their gaze had passed over him for that brief moment on the landing field….
And now, as he sat in the General Staff Meeting Room, his thoughts once again returned to that strange moment on the landing field, when he had felt that gentle probing of his mind behind two pairs of calm brown eyes. That must’ve been how Lingo knew about Sylvanna; Palmer thought suddenly. Some kind of telepathy!
He was uneasily sure that whatever Lingo’s real reason for insisting on his presence had been, it was somehow connected with that fleeting moment of mental probing.
Palmer had the feeling that he was being used as a pawn, and he did not like it one bit. He stared uneasily at the six hardbacked chairs that had been set up for the Solarians, facing the inner curve of the table.
Finally, Kurowski nodded to the General Staff, and pushed a button on the intercom in front of him, signaling that the Solarians were to be sent in. The General Staff stood up, not in token of respect for the Solarians, but so that they could sit down first, thus establishing their precedence over Lingo’s group.
The Solarians ambled into the room, with their already-familiar air of easy arrogance. Lingo glanced at the standing brass. His eyes seemed to twinkle with some secret amusement. Then, before Kurowski could say a word, Lingo abruptly sat down. His companions seated themselves flanking him.
The General Staff remained standing for a long, confused moment.
Then Dirk Lingo waved his hand negligently. “Sit down, won’t you, gentlemen?” he said pleasantly.
Palmer manfully suppressed a laugh. It was just too much. Lingo had done it again, and with foolish ease.
Kurowski flushed as he seated himself ungracefully. “I think the first order of business should be a short briefing for the benefit of our Solarian friends on the present state of The War,” he said, trying to regain the initiative. “After all, they have been out of contact for so long. If you will look above you, you will see a political map of the known Galaxy, showing Duglaari suns in red, the Human….”
“We are familiar with such maps,” said Lingo sharply. “Please proceed.”
Kurowski momentarily lost his temper and shot Lingo a truly poisonous look. Then he recovered his composure.
“Very well,” he said. “As you can see, the Doogs have approximately four systems to every three of ours. They have a roughly similar advantage in ships and personnel. Enough so that we are losing The War—our most recent computations say that we can hold out for but another century—but not enough to enable them to strike any one decisive blow. It is a war of attrition, slow, methodical, logical, like the Doogs themselves. It….”
“All this is ancient history, Marshal Kurowski,” snapped Lingo. “Such information is of little use to us, since all it amounts to is a statement that we are losing The War. And for the same reasons you have been losing it for the past three centuries. May I suggest that we could all save considerable time if Raul simply asks a few questions. He’s our Game-master.”
“Your what?“
Lingo smiled. “Gamemaster,” he said. “Let us say, for the sake of simplification, that it is merely our term for strategist. Raul?”
Once again, Palmer was moved to envious admiration. Lingo had wrested control of the meeting from Kurowski and laid it in the lap of the dark man with the moustache without even raising his voice!
“Right, Dirk,” said Ortega crisply. “I think only three questions are really necessary. First, who plans overall strategy for the Human Confederation?”
“I am Commander-in-Chief,” said Kurowski stiffly. “I….”
“Just a moment, Marshal Kurowski,” interrupted Maizel, the Chief of Computation. “I think it is accurate to say that the Command Computation Center on Olympia IV computes the overall strategy of The War.”
“So the computers still control overall strategy,” muttered Ortega, with an air of obvious distaste.
“Of course,” said Maizel. “The Doogs have an advantage in planets and ships. Therefore, we must at least use what resources we have to maximum efficiency, which means tight computer control of all aspects of The War.”
Ortega snorted. “They haven’t learned a damn thing in three centuries,” he mu
ttered to Lingo. “MacDay was right. Question two,” he said, turning to Maizel and Kurowski. “Do all computations still show that even with one hundred percent efficiency in utilizing resources, the Duglaari will eventually win The War?”
“We’ve already told you that,” snapped Kurowski.
“Then why in blazes do you continue to use the computers to run The War?”
Palmer felt like standing up and cheering, and he could see that even Kurowski was similarly pleased. Ortega had put the unvoiced feelings of all field commanders into one short, unanswerable question. Why not gamble, if all computations say you must lose anyway?
But Maizel had an answer, the old, infuriating stock answer. “Because,” he said, “at least by using our resources to maximum efficiency, which can only be achieved by computer control, we can draw The War out to its maximum possible length, thus maximizing the probability of developing some new weapon that will overcome the inherent numerical superiority of the Doogs, and….”
“In other words,” said Ortega, “the longer an ostrich keeps his head in the sand, the better his chances of surviving?”
Lingo smiled magnanimously. “You must excuse Raul,” he said. “Like all Gamemasters, he is prone to reduce things to the simplest possible terms. Which sometimes results in painful bluntness. However, I must point out that his analysis is essentially correct. Have you never considered abandoning the computers and trying something too daring for a mere machine to conceive?”
“You mean try suicide,” sneered Maizel. “It is only the computers that let us stand off the Doogs in the first place.”
“What about simply playing a good hunch?” suggested Ortega.
“You’re out of your mind,” shrilled Maizel.
Lingo and Ortega sighed knowingly and resignedly to each other. “Oh well,” muttered Ortega under his breath, “it was worth a try.”
“Are you trying to tell us that we can’t win The War after all?” said Kurowski. “Is that what you broke three centuries of isolation to do? To come here and simply throw the….”
“Not at all,” soothed Lingo. “As a matter of fact, we’ve brought you that for which you have been so irrationally waiting—the Secret Weapon, the factor that will suddenly turn The War around.”
“You have?” said Kurowski, obviously wanting desperately to retain his fast-dwindling belief in The Promise. “What is it?”
“Us,” said Lingo, smiling blandly.
“You?”
Lingo gestured to Max Bergstrom and Linda Dortin.
“You are thinking,” said Bergstrom, in a flat monotone, “that Solarians have developed delusions of grandeur in their isolation. You are thinking that perhaps Commander Palmer was right—perhaps The Promise was merely a lie to conceal cowardice, perhaps….”
“How can you know that?” gasped Kurowski. “No one heard that conversation but Palmer and me….”
“You are thinking,” said Linda Dortin, picking up smoothly from Bergstrom, “that it is impossible for us to know about a private conversation that occurred while we were still in space. You are thinking that the only way we could possibly have this information is if we were reading your mind…. That only telepaths could be doing what we are doing….”
“And of course you are right,” said Lingo.
“You’re…you’re all telepaths?“
“No,” said Lingo. “Just Linda and Max. We all have our own Talents, and it would be pointless to have more than two telepaths in a Group.”
“That’s the secret weapon?” said Kurowski. “Telepathy? It may have its uses, but how can we fight the Doogs with it?”
“It is only part of the weapon,” Lingo said. “Perhaps a further demonstration…?” He chuckled to himself. “Linda, perhaps…ah…Commander Palmer would favor us with a little dance?”
“What?” shouted Palmer.
Then he felt something giggle in his head. His limbs were moving of their own volition. He was climbing up onto the table. He was standing on the table-top. His feet began to move rhythmically. His fingers began to snap.
Commander Jay Palmer began to dance a jig on the conference table.
“Stop it, Palmer. I order you to stop!” roared High Marshal Kurowski.
“I…I can’t, sir…” moaned Palmer, still dancing furiously, “I can’t!”
“Enough,” ordered Lingo.
Quite suddenly, Palmer’s body was his own again. Numb and blushing, he crawled back to his seat.
“As you have seen,” said Lingo dryly, “telepathy implies certain…ah, other powers besides the ability to read minds. As in many other areas, communication implies control.”
“You mean you can teach our troops to use this technique?”
“Hardly,” said Lingo. “This is a Talent; you either have it, or you don’t. No, our plan calls for more direct action. You saw how it was possible to control Commander Palmer. Imagine having the Kor of All the Duglaari under similar control.”
“The Kor? You mean you propose to go to Duglaar?”
“You are getting the picture.”
“I’m getting the picture, all right!” snapped Kurowski. “You’re out of your minds! You could never get to Duglaar in one piece. There are so many ships guarding the Dugl system that a microbe couldn’t slip in. It’s a physical impossibility to come out of Stasis-Space within a solar system, so you’d be forced to proceed from beyond the orbit of the outermost planet to Duglaar itself under Resolution Drive. You wouldn’t have a chance. They’d blow you to bits before you got within the orbit of Dugl VI!”
“You are right,” said Lingo. “There is no way of forcing ourselves into the Kor’s presence. Nevertheless, there is a way of penetrating to the Council of Wisdom.”
“And that is?” snorted Kurowski.
“We surrender the Human Confederation to the Duglaari Empire.”
“What?” screamed the entire General Staff in virtual unison.
Lingo laughed. “Relax, gentlemen,” he said. “I don’t propose to actually surrender the Confederation, merely to use such a supposed mission to receive an audience with the Kor.”
“They’ll never go for it,” said Kurowski. “The Doogs aren’t interested in negotiated surrender. They’re out to exterminate us completely, and they’d never bother to offer terms.”
“Who said anything about terms?” said Lingo. “We’ll simply surrender unconditionally rather than go through the wasted effort of continuing to fight a war we can’t win. Efficiency. No human would think that way, but that’s exactly what the Doogs would do in our position. The efficient thing. The Doogs worship logic and efficiency, as you gentlemen should know, having tried diligently to emulate them for three centuries.”
“Perhaps it just might work…” mused Kurowski.
“What you are thinking,” said Max Bergstrom, “is that all that would be risked in such an attempt is six otherwise useless Solarians.”
Kurowski blushed, and tried to blurt a denial, but Lingo cut him off.
“Come, come,” he said, “you needn’t be ashamed of the thought. It is a calculated risk, and you are right—we are useless to you here. But there is one additional detail that you have overlooked. We would need an official of the General Staff along, to make it look good. Say…the Commander-in-Chief…?”
“If you think that I’m goto figrisk my neck in this harebrained….”
“Relax, Marshal Kurowski,” said Lingo. “I have anticipated your reluctance, and I have an alternate suggestion. Why not send along a junior officer instead, someone more dispensable? Of course, you would have to make him a temporary Ambassador-Plenipotentiary and raise him to the rank of General….”
Kurowski licked his lips. “You mean someone like, say a Fleet Commander? Someone like Commander Palmer?”
“Precisely.”
“Wait a minute!” cried Palmer, “I….”
“Commander Palmer, shut up!” barked Kurowski. “General Palmer, I hereby appoint you Ambassador-Plenipoten
tiary of the General Staff and attach you to duty aboard the Solarian ship.”
“But Marshal Kurowski….” began Palmer.
“I think that there is no point in further discussion,” interrupted Lingo. “We are all quite tired, and we’d like to leave for the Dugl system tomorrow morning. Commander…er, General Palmer, you will please report to the ship at eleven hundred tomorrow. If you will excuse us, gentlemen….”
And with that, Lingo and the other Solarians simply got up and walked out, like a royal family terminating an audience.
Only after the meeting had broken up, and Palmer was alone with his thoughts, did he realize what Lingo had done.
It was all a super-snowjob. Lingo had dominated the meeting from beginning to end. He had controlled things so completely that he had accomplished what no one had been able to do for three centuries—he had gotten the General Staff to permit a major move without consulting the computers.
And the General Staff had swallowed the Solarians’ plan without thinking. Because, if you had time to think about it, the plan was a patent absurdity. Even if they did get to see the Kor, which was highly doubtful despite Lingo’s glibness, even if they did get control of the Kor’s body, what then? What could they possibly make the Kor do that would change the course of The War without getting the Kor deposed? Make him do a jig?
No, the Solarians were up to something. Palmer didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t like it.
And all he did know was that he was stuck right in the middle of it!
Palmer walked slowly across the deepspace field towards the Solarian ship, his clothing bag slung over his shoulder, practicing the difficult task of keeping his mind blank. It was important not to think of…of what was in the bag…because if the Solarian telepaths could read his mind….
Kurows had had plenty of second thoughts, at Palmer’s final briefing, once he had had the time to really think about what was proposed.
The Solarians Page 4