“Means that telepic traveled to Andro Two at third power of speed of light, straight down the galactic corridor, plus—”
“So what? We’ve been dealing with FTL amplitudes for decades.”
“Puzzle is not velocity of signal, Defense Director. Puzzle is with relative velocities and paths of signal and signal-source.”
“I don’t get you. Are you speaking of that ‘beyond measurement’ business?”
“Yes, this is speaking business. Is Doppler shift of signal-source. Indicates that transmitter is mounted on system that travels at infinitely greater speed than signal itself, plus in opposite direction.” “I don’t understand that,” the Defense Director declared testily.
“Nor I. An unknown warp of physics is suggested. If ships coming, and friendly, why not ships send signal? Also, when do ships come?”
“This is sounding more ominous all the time, Mark. Could that telepic be a warning from a third party? Of an impending aggression?”
“This is possible,” Bond-Durelnt mused. “Now, question is, where are ships? Probes report no activity in corridor. From where do ships come? For what purpose?”
“The Chairman is going to be demanding some logic from us, Mark. We’d better get some ready. He has the intelligence computer mauling the thing around for him now. But he’s going to want our counsel. What are we going to tell him?”
The aide shrugged his shoulders. “Apology, Director, no simple solution exists. Too many unknowns. Perhaps intelligence computer can extrapolate findings. This human is no computer. Can go on feelings, though. Computer cannot do this. Feel that visit is unfriendly.”
At that moment the communicator toned, “Chairman to Defense.”
“Defense on,” Johns-Fielding reluctantly responded.
“The Chairman inquires if you have studied the telepic?”
“Yes, we are studying it with great interest.”
“The Chairman requests immediate conclusions.”
Johns-Fielding tossed a half-panicky glance at his aide and replied, “Conclusions are pending final correlation of data.”
“You have reference to the Doppler data.”
The Director hesitated a split-second, his eyes on the Squadroneer. “Yes, and other considerations,” he said.
The automated voice whirred back, “The Chairman advises Defense that correlation of all pertinent data has been resolved by the intelligence computer. Orders follow.”
The Director switched on a recorder and said, “Proceed.”
“Activate orbiting gunship Terra 10 with all possible speed. Deploy all deepspace squadrons along Defense Perimeter One. Allow no penetration of Solani space by alien craft. Station change for Terra 10 follows.”
“Proceed,” Johns-Fielding snapped, his eyes steady on the Squadroneer.
“Terra 10 will assume Earth-Moon orbit of maximum surveillance capability. This is all-speed, repeat, all-speed. Situation, emergency. Skronk- back requested.”
“Skronkback follows,” the Director responded. He punched the Skronk button on the communicator. The recorder began a playback of the instructions. Johns-Fielding whirled toward his aide and said, “I’ll take care of the alert to Moonbase. You get moving on the Terra 10 end.” The Squadroneer seemed stunned. His eyes wavered momentarily, then his gaze sought the far wall.
“What’s the matter with you?” the Director cried. “Haven’t you been listening. I said to get Terra 10—”
“Apology, this is a glitch,” Bond-Durant replied miserably.
“What do you mean? What sort of glitch?”
“Glitch is Terra 10. Gunner Whaleman is missing.”
“Missing?” Johns-Fielding fairly screeched. “What do you mean, missing? I was talking to him not twenty-four hours ago.”
“Affirmative, this is correct, and has not been seen since.”
“Then put out a general alarm and, in the meantime, get a replacement for him on the way.”
Squadroneer Mark Bond-Durant nodded his head and walked stonily out of the DDO. He did not have nerve enough to tell the Defense Director that there was no replacement for Gunner Whaleman. Not without months of training and preparation. At the moment, Bond-Durant knew, Zach Whaleman was Terra 10.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Behold, The Man
Zach Whaleman, at that moment, was not so certain of his own identity. His uniform had been taken from him and handed over to a group of Reever women. Now, clad in only a crotchguard and plastic vest, Whaleman had to admit that he blended in very well with the other Reever men. He had been taken to Tom Cole’s domehut where a cluster of men were engaged in a quietly animated conversation with Stel Rogers/Brandt. Dark looks were cast his way from time to time as the discussion went on and on. Whaleman, tied to a chair against a windowless wall, glowered back at them.
Presently, Tom Cole entered. A small plastic adhesive covered a cut beneath one eye and he was holding a contusion poultice to his lip. He removed the poultice long enough to grin at Whaleman, then went directly to the group at the other side of the hut. His deep basso quickly dominated the other voices, though Whaleman could not follow the line of conversation.
The reality of the scene was becoming more and more distorted for the Gunner. His mind had been in a continual spin since that moment of madness when he had tried to kill a fellow human. What could have possessed him? His mind quickly fled from any examination of Stel’s amazing assessment of his actions. True—he had behaved like a Reever-but surely, this alone could not forever indict him as an evolutionary revert. The MedTechs had long ago cleared him of any such suspicions.
The discussion at the other side of the hut ended abruptly, and the group flowed over to Whaleman. A big blond man bent over his chair, muttered something unintelligible, and untied him. Whaleman recognized him as the man who had piloted the gravcar during his kidnapping. The blond stepped back and delivered the thongs to Tom Cole. The Reever chief had been regarding Whaleman with a speculative eye. He said, “We don’t have to keep you tied up, do we Zach?”
Whaleman shook his head and rubbed the circulation into his hands.
“I’m not mad at you, Zach,” Cole said. “You did just what I was hoping you’d do.”
“Apology,” Whaleman murmured. “It has also been... like unreality... this time here. I lose reference with... correct action.”
“No, no—you did just what any man should have done. That’s what I was banking on, Zach. You’ve got real human genes down there in your center. I suspected it when you put up such a fight over at Board Island yesterday.”
“Yes,” put in George Hedges/Bolsom, the blond. “Some of the boys are still carrying your marks from that one.”
“I am no Reever,” Whaleman insisted.
Tom Cole released a sigh of frustration. He returned the thongs to Hedge and said, “Tie ’im down again.”
Whaleman did not resist.. He sat quietly and allowed the blond man to secure him once again to the chair. “I know what you want,” he declared, staring levelly at Tom Cole. “It is impossibility. Reevers cannot take over Terra 10. Is impregnable space fortress. Is prop-dead, meaning no propulsion capability, must be towed. Guns are deadlocked, cannot be fired without resort to complicated overrides. Reevers cannot live long enough to unlock secrets of Terra 10.”
“That’s why we need your help, Zach,” Tom Cole purred.
“This also is impossibility. Even if I am Reever, I will not give you secrets of Terra 10. Plus, Zach Whaleman is no Reever.”
The blow came without warning, a jarring open-hand slap sizzling into the flesh of his cheek with all of Tom Cole’s power behind it. The chair overturned and Whaleman crashed to the floor. Dazed, he lay there rigidly on his side and stared at the skeined feet of his captors. He heard Stel’s voice raised in vain protest and a rumbling rejoinder from Tom Cole. Then he was being lifted, still tied to the chair, and set upright. Another blow landed on his other cheek and again he went over. A vortex was beginning to form in t
he depths of his mind and his eyes seemed to glaze over with a red film. He was uprighted again and once more quickly knocked to the floor.
As he was being lifted for the third time, Whaleman discovered that he was straining against his bonds and grunting with exertion. A tremendous animal strength was coursing through him, enflaming his muscles and setting his heart into a wild beat. His teeth sunk into nearby flesh. Someone howled with pain and a new volley of blows knocked his jaws loose from his victim. Whaleman was only vaguely aware of his own actions, and it was with some surprise that he identified the animal snarls and grunts as issuing from his own mouth.
An alarmed voice yelled, “Lookout! The chair!”
Whaleman’s swirling head cleared briefly. He realized that he was standing and that the arms of the chair were still bound to his wrists, but the chair itself was in pieces and he was no longer restricted in his movements. With a roar of triumph, he willingly returned to the red glow of his inner rage and threw himself into the battle with renewed vigor, the plastic arms of his former prison now a formidable weapon as he swung murderously into the midst of his tormentors.
Bones crunched, and blood flowed and cries of alarm and pain filled the domehut, and then, Whaleman was moving fast through the doorway and into the darkened compound.
Stars twinkled at him through the sweet atmosphere, urging him onward. He glanced back to see Tom Cole and his men staggering after him. Whaleman had no idea whatever where they had concealed his gravcar. He quickly relinquished the forlorn hope of locating it in time and turned into the orchards in a hard run. Unreality enveloped him. Several times he fell on the uneven surface, and once he ran at full speed into a low-hanging branch of a tree, but he kept going without any thoughts of where or why. A long dormant center of Zach Whaleman had arisen in response to an urgent need, a very human and an entirely “natural” response of a life-mechanism in a survival situation.
His lungs were becoming inflamed and his legs leaden, but the Gunner of Terra 10 luxuriated in the new sensation. The sounds of pursuit were now far behind him. He paused to catch his breath and to rid himself of the chair-arms. His eyes fell on a metallic bar-like object which was apparently designed as a tool of agricultural maintenance. He hefted the bar in both hands, enjoying the feel of it, then slung it to his shoulder and jogged on. He had a weapon now. Let them catch him. Let them. He would kill them!
CHAPTER EIGHT
To Speak For Man
“Let him go!” Stel wailed, doggedly trotting along behind Tom Cole. “He isn’t going to help us. You’ll only kill him—and for what good?”
“He will help us,” Cole replied. “That boy’s coming out of his shell. When he gets all the way out, he’ll realize he’s in the same boat as the rest of us.”
They overtook Hedge, who was bent to the ground and carefully running his fingers along the soil.
“Got his tracks?” Tom Cole panted.
“Yeh,” Hedge grunted. “He turned up 33 here. -You know where that’ll take him.”
“33 is a curve row,” Cole mused. “Where’s the nearest straightline?”
“I’d say 21,” Hedge replied, rising tiredly to his feet.
“Oh, let him go!” Stel cried, stamping the ground angrily.
“Shut up that squalling,” Tom Cole muttered. He took Hedge’s arm, and the two of them jogged off on a slanting penetration of the deeper orchard.
Stel’s gaze swung indecisively between the possible routes, then she made her decision and ran swiftly along row 33 toward the distribution center.
Whaleman was surprised by the sudden break of vegetation as he loped into the clearing of the distribution center. He dodged back into the cover of trees and dropped to his knees for a careful scrutiny of the unknown area ahead. He studied the high skyline of darkened buildings and listened to the faint hum of machinery and tried to imagine what sort of Terran activity was underway there. As he watched, an automated train came in low over the clearing and moved slowly to a hover-stop above the shadowed buildings, then settled gently to a docking. Whaleman understood. He grunted with satisfaction and moved into the clearing, swinging the metal bar like a walking stick.
Almost immediately a voice behind him hissed, “Gunner!”
“Don’t go out there,” the same voice urged, in soft tones. “That’s Boob’s territory.”
This item of information had no meaning for Zach Whaleman. Crouched, the metal bar clasped in both hands and waving warningly in front of him, he was moving cautiously backwards, putting distance between himself and the Reevers. The men stepped hesitantly forward. "Whaleman recognized them as two of the men from Tom Cole’s hut. “Warning!” he cried fiercely. “Do not approach!”
“Can it!” the spokesman hissed, as the two of them continued a wary advance. “C’mon back over here. I’m telling you, Boob will...”
The man’s mouth remained open, but his words dwindled away, his head elevated suddenly to stare at something above and beyond Whaleman. The Gunner followed the frozen gaze and reacted visibly when he found the object of the Reever’s attention. A large beast was crabbing about just behind him, red eyes glowing, antennae curling menacingly.
Whaleman instinctively went to ground, throwing himself in a twisting dive onto the soft turf. He saw the pulse of the gun sensor and felt the jarring of air accompanying the ultrasonic blast. The two men had wheeled about and raced toward the trees, but both were suddenly flung to the ground in screaming seizures that brought Whaleman’s hackles to stiff attention. Two guns were zeroed-in on him and blasting in alternating spurts. He flashed a quick look at the Reevers, shivered at their involuntary and obviously painful flopping, and whirled again to confront the monster, wondering vaguely why he himself was not leaping about the ground. In the comer of his vision he glimpsed Tom Cole and Hedge run into the open slightly uprange, then dodge back into the cover of trees.
Cole shouted, “Zach, get outta there!”
He stood wavering indecisively, loathe to continue facing the blazing fury of the autosentinel, yet unwilling to deliver himself into the hands of the Reevers. Then Stel Rogers/Brandt appeared, just beyond the flopping Reevers, and sized up the situation with a quick appraisal.
“Hurry!” Tom Cole roared. “He’ll get to you soon!”
“No, don’t!” Stel called out. “Keep going. Boob has no effect on you—just on Reevers!”
Whaleman was circling warily, waving his iron bar at the monster, trying to understand what was happening and to reach a course of action. Stel ran into the open, then reversed and leapt sideways as a Boob antenna quivered in her direction. The ultrasonic blast missed her by inches, and again she was diving and rolling, reversing and diving again, working her way toward Whaleman.
The Gunner stood locked in a reaction of shocked horror as the ultrasonic blasts continued bracketing the beautiful girl, then he came alive with an animal roar and charged the big machine, swinging the heavy bar like a madman, hacking at the spindly legs with the fierce gusto of a Viking warrior.
The bug whirled drunkenly, one of its legs smashed, its logic systems whirring furiously for a counter-program, off-balance and tottering as Whaleman began working on another leg. It tilted, all guns now firing wildly, and began settling to the ground on folded legs. Whaleman promptly leapt atop the automat, smashed the eyes, then—seizing an inspiration—forced the bar through a broken eye-port and rammed it in with all his strength. The metal bar flashed and sizzled and Whaleman was hurled to the ground as electronic circuits fused and exploded.
The Gunner picked himself off the ground and examined his tingling hands, forgetting them immediately as he swung to check on Stel. She was kneeling, several yards away, regarding him with an almost frightened gaze. Tom Cole and Hedge ran out to inspect the smoking automat, talking excitedly.
Whaleman went over and pulled Stel to her feet. “Stel is well?” he asked solicitously.
She nodded. “Except for slightly jangled nerves and a buzzing head,” s
he panted.
“What robot is this?” Whaleman asked angrily, turning to glare at the wrecked autosentinel.
He released Stel and went quickly to the Reevers who were still shuddering uncontrollably on the ground. Both men’s eyes were rolling in their sockets and their lips were foaming.
“What explains this?” he demanded, swinging quickly away in revulsion.
“They’ll be all right,” Stel assured him. “A boobing is painful but not fatal.”
“What is boobing?” Whaleman persisted. “Explain automat attacking human! What is this!”
Tom Cole, approaching cautiously, replied, “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you, Zach. You wanted to know what life is like for the Reevers. Here’s another example.” He circled warily and dropped to the ground beside his fallen men, checked to make sure that they were not strangling on their own tongues, then gave Whaleman a gaze of undiluted admiration. “You really zingoed the monster good, Zach. I guess I owe you an apology. You're certainly no Reever.” His eyes flashed meaningfully to the Boob’s quivering victims. “Otherwise, you’d be in the same shape these boys are in right now.”
“Boobing is only for Reevers?” the Gunner said.
Cole nodded his head and tiredly pushed himself upright. “That’s our stock in the corporation, Zach. Delivered every time we show ourselves outside the orchards.”
Whaleman pivoted defensively at the approach of Hedge. The big blond grinned and thrust his palms straight out in front.
“Friends,” he said. “Anybody can mutilate Boob like that is my hero for life.”
“You’re free to go,” Tom Cole muttered. “Go on. Go on hack to your whirring machines.”
Whaleman’s gaze sought the outline of the buildings. “Is transportation there?” he inquired.
Tom Cole sighed. “Go around to the other side. You’ll find a plastic walkway. It’ll take you to the manager’s complex. He’s a little gray Homan and you’ll probably scare the Mars dust out of him at first, dressed like that, but I guess you can handle that problem all right.”
Don Pendleton's Science Fiction Collection, 3 Books Box Set, (The Guns of Terra 10; The Godmakers; The Olympians) Page 6