The Solarians

by Norman Spinrad

“Remember, Jay, you’re talking about one of the greatest men who ever lived. MacDay saw that Man too was afraid of his alogical nature. Like the Duglaari, he couldn’t understand it either, and so he has always feared it, and tried to deny it. MacDay had a definition of Man as ‘the only animal who c never understand himself.’ Intelligence fears that which it can’t understand…. All human societies have tried to deny Man’s alogicality. MacDay knew that Man’s only hope was to form a new society, one that would develop Man’s alogical nature, one that would be thoroughly human, as the Duglaari Empire is thoroughly Doog. He was too much a part of his people to see what that society would be like, but he knew that Man had to have it or perish.

  “So he seized power, and isolated Sol. And then he systematically went about tearing the social order to pieces! All computers were junked. All government, save enough military organization to maintain isolation, was abolished. MacDay threw Mankind off a cliff, into chaos, hoping that he would find a way to fly before he hit bottom. It was the bravest thing any man ever did. The suffering was unimaginable. You cannot begin to comprehend the horrors that were purposely loosed. MacDay knew how terrible it would all be. He also knew he would never live to see the outcome, that he would never know whether he would be remembered as a hero, or as the greatest monster in human history. Yet such was his courage, that he did it anyway.”

  Palmer was shaken to the core. The truth was far more terrible than the enigma had ever been.

  “And…and it worked?” he muttered.

  “It worked,” Lingo said. “Out of the chaos and madness, a new society slowly arose, based on the Talents, based on the Organic Group. It stabilized less than a century ago. There were things that had to be mopped up, things I don’t want to even think about. Not until now was the new society ready to do battle with the Doogs. But now we are ready. This mission is the first step.”

  “And this mission…it’s not what you told the General Staff, is it? It’s something…inhuman?“

  “No!” exclaimed Lingo. “It’s something totally human. The strategy of the Confederation is what’s inhuman.”

  “But you won’t tell me what it is, will you?”

  “No, Jay,” said Lingo, his face softening with a strange wistfulness that seemed almost regret. “I know how hard this is on you, but you are not yet ready to understand. What we are going to do is alogical. You would not understand it; you could only fear it. I can only ask that you trust us. Think of what Sol has gone through to bring this mission about Please, Jay, please trust us.”

  Palmer no longer felt that nagging suspicion of the Solarians’ motives. There was no room left in him for that; he was filled with something far stronger: awe…awe and fear.

  “I’ll try, Dirk,” he said, “really, I’ll try”

  “Good, Jay. I….”

  “Dirk! Dirk!”

  It was Ortega, sticking his head through the door. “We’re within the Duglaari Empire now,” he said.

  Lingo stood up. “Come on, Jay,” he said. “We’re going to to the control room. It’s time to come out of Stasis-Space.”

  Chapter VI

  FRAN SHANNON was already seated in one of the pilot’s chairs when Lingo, Ortega and Palmer reached the control room. Lingo sat down in his seat and motioned Palmer to one of the dummies, which had been rigged with a microphone from the master radio panel. Ortega took the seat beside him.

  Lingo turned on the great hemi-spherical viewscreen, and they were floating in the swirling maelstrom of colors that was Stasis-Space.

  “Are you sure we’re within the boundaries of the Duglaari Empire, Fran?” Lingo asked.

  “Positive,” she replied. “We’re less than a quarter of a light year from one of their peripheral suns.”

  “Raul,” said Lingo, “you think there’ll be a Doog patrol this far out from their central suns?”

  “About a ninety percent chance that there will,” Ortega said. “Remember, the Duglaari have been on the offensive throughout The War. No human ship has penetrated much beyond the periphery of the Duglaari Empire. So we can figure that they’ll concentrate most of their patrols around the periphery of their territory, with the rest of their defensive forces concentrated around the individual solar systems.”

  “Well, even so, I’d say that our chances of encountering an interstellar patrol are near zero,” Lingo said. “So our best bet is to head for that nearby sun Fran mentioned.”

  “Right, Dirk,” Ortega said. “If we get near the outskirts of the system in normal space, we’re bound to encounter a Doog systemic patrol.”

  “Fran, exactly how far are we from that Doog system now?”

  “Approximately .221 of a light year, Dirk.”

  “Close enough,” said Lingo. “Prepare to enter normal space.”

  Palmer could contain himself no longer. “Are you all out of your minds?” he shouted. “What in blazes are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to come out of Stasis-Space, Jay,” said Lingo evenly. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “Can’t you thif a pleasanter way to commit suicide?” Palmer snapped. “If we show ourselves this close to a Doog sun, we’ll certainly run into a heavily armed patrol!”

  “Of course we will, Jay,” said Ortega. “That’s exactly why we’re doing it.”

  Lingo threw a switch, and the piebald chaos of Stasis-Space was gone. The star-studded blackness of normal space appeared in the viewscreen. A great yellow sun outshone all the other stars, though it was not close enough to show a disc.

  “There she blows,” said Ortega. “The Doogs favor G-type suns, same as we do.”

  “Grid, please,” Lingo said. Fran pressed a button, and the gridwork of white lines appeared, superimposed on the image of the space surrounding them. The large red circle indicating the ship’s line of flight appeared in the exact center of the great viewscreen, and Fran threw a smaller red circle around the Duglaari star with her indicator.

  Lingo turned on the Resolution Drive. He adjusted the ship’s attitude in space so that the smaller circle surrounding the Doog sun was centered in the larger circle indicating the ship’s line of flight. They were headed straight for the Doog sun!

  “Lock controls,” Lingo said. “Switch on beacon.”

  “Beacon!” shouted Palmer. “Beacon? Will someone please tell me what’s going on? Is everyone crazy? We’re heading straight for a Doog system and you turn on the ship’s beacon? You’ll have every Doog ship in the area down on us!”

  “That’s the whole point,” said Ortega. “Naturally, they’d detect us sooner or later anyway, but the beacon’ll make it surer and quicker.”

  “But this is insane! What’s preventing us from going all the way to Dugl itself in Stasis-Space? We’d be undetectable in Stasis-Space, instead of being sitting ducks, the way we are now.”

  “Use your head, Jay,” Ortega said. “Olympia is the capital of the Confederation, right? It’s guarded by a tremendous concentration of ships. What if a Doog ship appeared at the outskirts of the Olympia system all of a sudden? What do you think the Olympia Systemic Defense Command would do?”

  “Are you kidding? They’d blast it to very small pieces, of course! What do you think they’d do, let it get close enough to Olympia to turn it nova by turning on its Stasis-Field Generator?”

  “Exactly,” said Ortega. “And do you think Dugl will be any less heavily guarded? Do you think the Doogs will be any less trigger-happy? Do you think we’d have any chance at all of getting within two billion miles of Duglaar without being blown to bits?”

  “But…but that’s what I’ve been sayg all along!” exclaimed Palmer. “We don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting anywhere near Duglaar in one piece! Now you’re admitting that the whole mission is impossible?”

  “Not at all,” replied Ortega. “Merely that….”

  “No time for explanations now, Raul,” interrupted Lingo. “Look!”

  A tiny, dim speck seemed to move perceptibly near the y
ellow Duglaari sun.

  “They’re really on their toes, aren’t they?” Lingo said. “Let’s have a close-up, Fran.”

  Fran did something with her controls, and the viewscreen surrounding them flickered out for a moment. When the screen went on again, the Doog sun showed a perceptible disc.

  And directly ahead of them, was a cloud of tiny lights.

  “One…two…twelve…fifteen…. Twenty Duglaari ships!” Ortega said. “Headed straight for us, and closing fast.”

  “All ahead, full!” said Lingo. “Jay, pick up the mike!”

  Numbly, Palmer gripped the microphone. “What’re you doing?” he muttered confusedly.

  “No time to explain now,” Lingo said. “You promised you’d try to trust us, Jay. You’ve got to do it right now. Here’s what I want you to do: tell ‘em who you are, and that we’re on our way to Duglaar to surrender to the Kor. Keep repeating it. They’re in radio range now.”

  “But….”

  “Please, Jay!”

  Palmer shrugged resignedly. Okay, he thought, I’ll have to trust you now. What else is there to do?

  “This is General Jay Palmer, Ambassador-Plenipoteniary of the Combined Human Military Command. We are on our way to Duglaar to surrender the Human Confederation to the Kor. This is General Jay Palmer, Ambassador-Plenipotentiary of the Combined Human Military Command….”

  Faster and faster, the Duglaari flotilla came at the Solarian ship. Faster and faster, too, the Solarian ship sped, straight at the Duglaari ships. The closing speed was tremendous, and growing every moment, as both continued to accelerate.

  “…We are on our way to Duglaar to surrender to the Kor. This is General Jay Palmer….”

  Now Palmer could see that the Doog flotilla had arranged itself in a great hollow hemisphere—terminal battle formation. If the Solarian ship continued on its course, it would be caught in the hollow hemisphere; the hemisphere would become a globe, and they would be squashed by the Doog Fleet Resolution Field….

  “Ambassador-Plenipoteniary of the Human Confederation. We are on our…”

  The Doogs were almost upon them! The individual ships could be clearly made out now, squat and black and deadly. In a few more minutes, the hemisphere of Doog ships would reach out for them like a monstrous amoeba.

  Lingo pressed a button, and after about a minute’s hesitation, as the Stasis-Field Generator warmed up, the Doog flotilla was suddenly gone. The stars too, were gone. Space itself was gone, and they were safely back in Stasis-Space.

  Palmer sighed deeply in relief. Lingo had snapped them back into Stasis-Space just in time. Another minute or so, and….

  “Okay, Jay,” Lingo said. “You can relax for a while.”

  “Now will someone please explain why we took such a crazy chance?” Palmer asked.

  “Can’t you figure it out, Jay?” Ortega said. “We can’t just pop up outside the Dugl system. Our chances of getting to Duglaar that way would be exactly zero. What we’re doing is risky, but it’s the only way. We’ve got to prepare our reception. We’ve got to make the Doogs curious enough so that they won’t blast us the moment we arrive at Dugl. We’ve at least got to get them to establish contact before they start shooting.”

  “That’s a tall order,” Palmer said. “Curiosity is not exactly the Duglaari strong point. They play it safe. And the safe thing for them to do is to blast us out of space and not leave enough left to ask questions of later. You really think appearing like this and announcing ourselves once will get them to hold their fire at Dugl?”

  “No,” said Ortega. “That’s why we’ve got to do it two more times.”

  “What? But the next time, the Doogs will have been already alerted! It’ll be even more dangerous!”

  “We’ve got no choice,” Ortega said. “We’ve got to show them that this appearance was no fluke, that we’re purposely putting ourselves at their mercy. And to do that, we’ve got to stick our necks out twice more.”

  “And what chance will we have of getting to Duglaar, even if we do get away with this game of cat and mouse?” Palmer asked dubiously.

  “Not too bad,” Ortega said calmly. “Maybe as good as fifty-fifty, if we play things right.”

  Palmer clutched the microphone grimly. They had reached another Duglaari system. Now they were ready to pull the lion’s whiskers a second time. What would the Duglaari have waiting for them now?

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  Lingo pressed the button, and once more, they emerged into normal space.

  “There they are!” Lingo exclaimed, pointing to a formation of Doog ships that began to change course in their direction even as he spoke. “That’s no patrol, that’s a full Fleet! They’re in radio range already, and they’re closing fast. We don’t have much time. Go ahead, Jay!”

  “This is General Jay Palmer, Ambassador-Plenipotentiary of the Human Confederation. We are on our way to Duglaar to surrender the Confederation to the Kor….”

  As he spoke, he kept a careful eye on the Doog Fleet, closing with them at ever-increasing speed. There was something strange about the Doog formation. They were awfully close, close enough so that they should already have formed the Fleet into hollow hemisphere formation, in preparation for the englobement action.

  But instead, the Doog formation was a flat, one-ship-thick disc, the face of the disc facing straight at them.

  “…. We are on our way to surrender the Human Confederation to the Kor….”

  Suddenly the face of the Doog formation erupted in gouts of flame. Palmer had time to see that a fusillade of missiles was headed straight for them, its speed the sum of the speeds of the Doog Fleet and the missiles’ own propulsion systems.

  “Get us out of here, Lingo!” Palmer roared. “Now.”

  “Wha—”

  “Hit the button!”

  Lingo took one look at Palmer’s face, and obeyed the command. He pressed the button that started the Stasis-Field Generator. There was a long minute’s delay as the Generator warmed up.

  And a tremendous flash of light as the entire barrage of missiles exploded simultaneously, sending a tremendous wavefront of hard radiation straight for the ship at the speed of light.

  Then the Doog sun, and the ships and the deadly blast of radiation were gone, and they were safely in Stasis-Space.

  “Boy, that was close!” Ortega said. “Another few seconds, and….”

  “I still don’t quite know what happened, Jay,” Lingo said. “How did you know that they were going to use missiles with proximity fuses? I thought they’d either try to englobe us, or actually hit us with a barrage.”

  Palmer grinned wryly. “Just the voice of experience,” he said. “They weren’t quick enough to englobe us last time, so it figured they would try to do something faster than an englobement—which an attack with contact-fused missiles is not. Ast f as I saw those missiles, I knew that they would try to get us with the radiation from a shaped explosion. Remember, a wavefront like that travels at the speed of light, much faster than the missiles themselves could close the gap.”

  Ortega grimaced. “I wonder what they’ll have waiting next time,” he said.

  “After what happened, you still insist on sticking our neck out a third time?” Palmer said, as Lingo once again prepared to plunge the ship into normal space.

  “You know that we have to,” Ortega said.

  “One thing I just don’t understand, Raul,” said Palmer. “Why didn’t we just tell them that this ship is from Sol? Sol’s a magic word, even to the Doogs. And especially if their subconscious motivation is fear. Why keep taking crazy chances?”

  “Good thinking, Jay,” Ortega said. “You’re learning, but you haven’t learned it all yet. Our identity is our ace in the hole, and we’ve got to save it for the last hand. The Doogs we’re playing cat and mouse with now are very junior commanders. Their orders are to destroy all hostile ships, and Duglaari obey orders—period. It wouldn’t do us any good to tell these Doogs we’re Solarians. Ou
r only hope is to get to Dugl in one piece and tell the Duglaari Systemic Defence Commander there who we are. Look at it from the Duglaari point of view. They’ll know the ship is coming, at Dugl. So they’ll have one of their top military men in command of our reception committee. What I’m hoping is that when we tell him that we’re from Sol, he’ll have enough independent authority to hold his fire while he checks with Duglaari—maybe even with the Kor himself. And then, if the Kor is curious enough….

  “Makes sense,” Palmer said in admiration. Certainly no strategy computer would’ve been able to reason along those lines, he knew. A game of cards, a gamble—something no computer would understand. And the stakes were their lives, and perhaps the fate of the entire human race.

  It was a good plan, if it worked. The only trouble was that it required another deadly game of cat and mouse. And this time, no doubt, the Doogs would be ready for them.

  “Ready to go into normal space,” Lingo said. He pressed the button.

  Stars appeared. They were in normal space again. In the center of the viewscreen blazed a great yellow sun….

  Off to one side of the sun, a point of light suddenly blossomed, then another and another, growing with lightning speed into great blinding pillars of light, straight at them in a terrible, searing, all-enveloping flash of….

  Suddenly they were gone. The ship was back in Stasis-Space.

  Lingo exhaled heavily, throwing back his head. Ortega whistled in relief.

  “What was it?” muttered Palmer.

  “That was closer than I care to think about,” Lingo said. “Mines. Robot mines armed with lasecannon. We use ‘em ourselves to cordon off Fortress Sol. They’ve probably got all kind of detectors—at least ours do. Radar, heat sensers, radioactivity detectors, laser range-finders, visual pick-ups—you name it! They zeroed in on us in about a minute. The only thing that saved us was the fact that they were several light-minutes away, which gave me just enough time to put the ship into Stasis-Space before the lasebeams hit.”

  “Now what?” asked Palmer.

  “Raul, can we skip it and go right on to Dugl?” Lingo asked.