Colin Kapp - The Ion War

by Colin Kapp

  For those who had never before visited Syman, the metal world was an unexpected and fascinating place. Stripped by some cosmic holocaust of its former mantle, Syman was the solid metal core of some far greater planet. Now it was nothing more than a gigantic ball of metal into which, like sophisticated space-maggots, the miners had driven their shafts and galleries.

  The fascination arose from the fact that their towns, their apartments, their furniture, and virtually everything they used or possessed were all constructed from nickel-iron. Faced with the challenge of extreme monotony, their craft workshops had been diligent in exploring design and finishes, and their engineers and architects had achieved levels of sheer genius in cutting cavities of marvellous complexity and intriguing design, so that the turning of every corner revealed a new vista of marvels wrought in polished metal, and even the most mundane of rooms held artifacts of great artistry and beauty of design. Imported coloured materials were always circumspectly used to enhance the native forms, and although the business of Syman was gross metal mining, the effect was of this being performed in a palace of silvery, oriental splendour.

  Liam Liam was less concerned with the marvels of the place than he was with communication and aspects of defence. The great elevator shafts which provided the only access to the surface, had multiple airlock systems to prevent the escape of even minute amounts of the precious recycled atmosphere; and in order to avoid the zone of temperature variation as Syman spun between its sun and the coldness of space, there were no horizontal galleries less than two kilometres deep in the solid metal. In company with Syman's Security Councillor, he completed his inspection with the conviction that no weapon-violence short of a hellburner could destroy the installation. The elevator platforms themselves were the weakest points, but constructed as they were to handle hundred tonne slabs of metal for despatch, and even whole sling-ships for transit to the repair bays, these were super-massive pieces of engineering by any standards.

  Communications were more difficult. Because of the shielding effect of the great metal mass of the planet, transmission of space signals from inside Syman was impossible. For regular commercial communications, the planetary ball itself was used both as receiving and transmitting antenna, a purpose for which it functioned admirably. However, there was no method by which the transmissions could be reduced to the tight beam that Liam would have preferred to give his transmissions the requisite security. There was no answer to this problem short of drilling a new shaft through two kilometres of nickel-iron to the surface. Liam had finally to arrange his transmitters in the knowledge that everything he sent to the Starbucket far out in space could be easily jammed or monitored by the Warforce above. It was a grave deficiency, and one that could easily prove fatal if the Terrans realized the nature of the coded data, and applied it to their own battle intelligence.

  Soon Liam's scoutships were reporting the paraformer mother-ship and her formidable escort nearing the space approaches to Syman. The importance of their arrival to the Terrans could be deduced by their placing their whole fleet on standby alert, and by the immediate prohibition placed on the movement of the sling-ships which had previously been free to move their gross cargoes through the Terran orbital ring. The sling-ships were allowed to remain in an outer orbit, however, presumably because, being unarmed and unshielded, they could be shot out of space at any time their presence became inconvenient. In point of fact, having gained high orbit, most of them chose to wander off into space. The Terran invaders missed the fact that the several sling-ships who remained had been equipped with Liam's cameras and scanners, and that interwoven with the commercial and technical chatter of the communications with the planetary base was a multiplexed information channel which was feeding Liam with a bird's-eye view of the ship chain in orbit far above his head.

  As Liam had predicted, the Terrans lost no time in releasing a paraforming ship from the carrier once parking orbit had been achieved; and the deployment of the remaining fighting vessels made it a certainty that the trick of harassment by jumping out of tachyon space for a sneak attack, which Liam's little force had previously employed, would have been disasterous had it been attempted near Syman. The Terrans were learning fast, and their tactical judgment was sound. So effectively had they covered all the angles that Liam began to have just a hint of doubt about whether they could also have anticipated the presence of a second para-ion squad dedicated to fighting Liam's war. As the Terran paraformer ship plunged towards the surface he became even more convinced that Euken's notion of a Liam trap stood a good chance of becoming a reality.

  CHAPTER XX

  From Terra to Syman's orbit via tachyon-space jumps was a thirty-day journey. Absolute and the other officers had transferred by pinnace to the accompanying cruiser early in the flight, leaving only a guard detail to maintain order. The crew of the craft-carrier seemed unaware of the aspects of enforcement surrounding the presence of the para-ion crew; and Dam, having no flight duties to perform, found his movements around the carrier were unrestricted. In company with the wild-eyed Fiendish, he took the opportunity to examine the carrier and the two paraformer craft contained in the craft-lock. Such an interest appeared to arouse no comment either with the crew or the guards, and was presumably thought to be dutiful familiarization with the equipment in preparation for the coming encounter.

  A knowledge of the equipment at the training base made it evident to the two explorers that the paraformer ships were aptly named, being little more than paraforming units plus ancillary services built into small spacecraft not much larger than the little pinnaces themselves. Such was the weight and size of the installation that the compact design had only been achieved by omitting the conventional tachyon-space capability from the little ships. This explained the use of the craft-carrier to transport them over interstellar distances.

  Fiendish was analyzing the situation with an eye to the possibility of escape. Dam, who as a space-army officer already knew something of the nature of Syman from the navigational hazards created by the Syman-Toroliver sling shuttle, was less hopeful. An escape to Syman, he suggested, was only the exchange of one dungeon for another if the Terrans were contemplating occupation of the metal world. For himself he was content to explore and to attempt to understand all of the equipment he countered, knowing that such background information might prove invaluable when he judged the time right to make his own move.

  Unable to persuade Dam to join him, Fiendish left him and went to try to enlist support amongst other members of the para-ion squad. Dam continued his detailed examination of one of the paraforming ships and its contents. Ultimately he made a discovery which was both logical and at the same time unexpected: in a locked cupboard he found not one but several of the little radio-pulse units with which Absolute had activated both his and her own inbuilt para-ion capabilities. Not daring to believe his luck, he inspected both instruments closely. They appeared to belong to two groups, and were probably sets of individually tunes radio-activators, each set matched to a particular individual. Since, on the information Absolute had given to him, only she and himself were yet so equipped, it seemed logical to assume that they had one set each. But which was his?

  He took the radio units out carefully and laid them on a table, trying to find any marks or figures which might give him a clue to the identity of the person who would be affected by the actuation. He was uncomfortably aware that without a knowledge of the range of the transmissions if he mistakenly operated the unit attuned to Absolute he could well trigger her prematurely into a para-ion state even if she was in the accompanying cruiser. This would both betray his interest and no doubt raise a considerable degree of anger against him.

  He could decide nothing from the coding pattern on the boxes, but one of them had a surface shine slightly dulled, as if by repeated handling; that one, he decided, must belong to Absolute. He therefore selected an activator from the other group, arranged the rest back in the cupboard, and, holding his breath, he pressed th
e operating button.

  It was a painful transition, but beautifully swift. Since no other forming material had been supplied, he had automatically adopted the identity of the air around him; in the para-ion form of a dull lilac ghost he prowled the interior of the little ship, trying to come to terms with the potential involved in having complete access to the para-ion state. He had found how the timing mechanism worked, and allowed himself ample time in which to experiment. On hearing close footsteps approaching, however, he hastily thrust the timer back to zero, and hoped fervently that he had understood the principles of its operation sufficiently to ensure a swift and safe return to his normal molecular identity.

  He was still reeling from the reorientation shock when Absolute came through the door. So closely timed was her entry that Dam felt she must have seen the para-ion glow as she came in from the docking ramp, but she showed neither curiosity nor surprise at finding him in the little ship, and if she noticed anything unusual, she gave no sign of it.

  "Well met, Lover! We make orbit around Syman in about eight hours. I wanted to discuss our part in this."

  "I'd just as soon sit this one out, if it's all the same to you."

  She shot him a quick look of mock disapproval.

  "It's not all the same to me, Lover! We've just completed details of the para-ion campaign against Syman. Eleven men plus one officer trained in the old technique will make a normal para-ion approach, descending in a paraformer ship. Shortly behind them, and with maximum fleet coverage, we two will make planetfall in a pinnace ostensibly as part of a non para-ion commando follow-up. The para-ion squad will make the initial breach for us. We will stay in normal molecular identity until we're actually inside the installation."

  "Wouldn't it be safer if we went straight down in para-ion state with the others?"

  "Not necessarily. The fact is that we're expecting them to meet some fairly sophisticated opposition, though we don't yet know what form it might take. So we two are an unsuspected para-ion reserve, with capabilities the opposition hasn't yet encountered. Our intervention could well be crucial to the whole encounter."

  "Sophisticated opposition on Syman? Don't you know what Syman is?"

  "I know exactly what Syman is. But it's not just Syman we're up against. There's a Hub guerrilla group with a special line of dirty tricks."

  "Guerilla's don't have para-ion capability."

  "These may have. To date they've destroyed two para-former ships and hijacked a third. They betrayed their special interest when they returned and kidnapped seven para-ion technicians from the fleet around Lightning."

  "And you think they'll field their own para-ion troops on Syman?"

  "We don't know what they'll do, but Syman was selected as being the ideal scene for such a confrontation, because under no circumstances can they win. If they think they can master the para-ion technique, Lover, they're about to learn reality the hard way. And don't run away with any crazy ideas about trying to join the opposition. Your para-ion identity will be entirely under my control. You will react and fight exactly as directed, otherwise it will take no more than my finger on a button to eliminate you painfully and finally. You know me well enough to know I wouldn't hesitate."

  "I love you too!" said Dam sourly, rising to his feet because the interview appeared to be at an end.

  Absolute had turned away from him and was attending to the contents of the cupboard from which he had taken the radio pulse unit. The missing unit now rested seemingly large and heavy in his pocket, and he judged it to be only a matter of seconds before she realized that one was missing, and was drawn to the obvious conclusion. Nevertheless he forced himself to walk away with studied nonchalance, and the vicious shout which should have accompanied the discovery did not come.

  The pinnace containing Absolute, Dam and a commando group dropped out of orbit fourteen minutes after the departure of the paraformer ship. Most of the intervening time had been taken up by the descent of the para-ion squad to the surface, and at the time of the pinnace's departure very little resistance had been reported. For the duration of their own descent they closely monitored the reports of the para-ion men and followed their progress in taking over the elevator control system. Then at a certain point, all transmissions on the para-ion squad's radio channel stopped.

  The radio blackout was not unexpected. As the attackers had penetrated deeper into the metal ball, so their own transmissions would have been increasingly intercepted and absorbed by the bulk of the metal world. It was not anticipated that further word would be obtained until the para-ion men had gained control of one of the main transmitters which used the planetary ball itself as a transmitting aerial. Even so it was highly disconcerting for those in the second ship to be unable to ascertain the fate of those who had gone before.

  Space-suited, the occupants of the pinnace leaped out onto Syman's surface near one of the great elevator platforms, and ran towards the elevator-control dome, which had been captured by the first para-ion team. A para-ion man had been assigned to operate the platform that had taken his comrades below. He had been quick to tell the newcomers how, once having descended with the para-ion squad, the platform had returned to the surface and thereafter refused to respond to its controls.

  There followed a hasty trek to examine the other platforms in the vicinity, but these were all similarly inactive; and thus the newcomers were sealed out on the surface while the para-ion men were sealed in the metal cavities below. The immediate suggestion was that they should use explosives to destroy one of the platforms and gain access to the shaft itself. It was Absolute who pointed out that they had not come equipped to handle a descent down a vertical well five kilometres deep. The final answer was to send for a space-engineering team from the orbiting war-force, who, with commendable speed and ingenuity managed to isolate the elevator from its former control circuitry and provide a new power in-feed from their own generators. This, however, took nearly an hour and during that time no word had been received from the men below ground; it was obvious that Absolute was becoming increasingly anxious about the time limits which had been programed into the modulator packs of the para-ion men.

  Dam viewed this dislocation with suppressed glee, but knew it was no more than a preliminary matching of wits. Considering that the destructive capability of the Terrans represented an overkill potential of about a thousand times, it was obvious that while the defenders might introduce irritating delays there could be no doubt of the outcome€”the occupants of Syman could not possibly win.

  Absolute, who although nominally only a major, carried an extra authority which easily outranked the more senior officers involved. She decided the next move immediately. She and Dam, in para-ion identity, would descend by the liberated elevator while a second platform would be similarly secured for use by the regular commandos. Her reasoning was simple: the first elevator to descend was bound to meet a very hot reception, one which only those in para-ion identity would be able to survive. Once through, they would secure the base of the second elevator, so that the regular commandos could enter without walking into a prepared trap. In the meantime further commandos were ordered down from orbit to follow up on the advantage thus gained.

  Apprehensively, Dam submitted to the para-ion transition and joined Absolute on the elevator platform. Between them they had a small arsenal of radiation weapons with which to meet the trap into which they were descending. It was here that Dam was forced to marvel at Absolute's confidence and courage, and her firm conviction that the two of them alone could swing the battle and save the para-ion team from whatever it had become involved in. He could see though that two trained para-ion fighters could be worth more than a whole regiment of conventional commandos in such a situation. This point was viciously underscored when an elevator platform that had not been under direct observation unobtrusively descended and then returned to the surface bearing a blast bomb that killed most of the commandos already on the surface.

  Recovering from the sho
ck, the remaining men rallied to the all-important task of speeding the 'liberated' elevator on its way, bearing the indomitable Absolute and the extremely apprehensive Dam. During the descent down the great polished-metal shaft Dam studied Absolute, wondering if she was similarly affected, but her face showed only the light of her dominating and unspoken passion, and, curiously, a hint of triumph.

  Reluctantly, Dam began to marshal his weapons, knowing that regardless of his sympathies, his only route to personal survival lay in fighting his way through whatever waited at the foot of the shaft. It was certain that Absolute herself would kill him if he faltered for an instant in furthering her bloody cause. It was not that he valued his own life so highly as the fact that, knowing what he knew and being possessed now of inbuilt para-ion capability, his future potential for damaging Terra's aims depended on his being able to live to bear his knowledge back to the Hub. If maintenance of life meant killing a few allies now, it was a misfortune that must be balanced against greater final good. Even so, the idea tasted utterly bitter on his tongue, and his sole consolation was the comforting weight of the stolen pulse-activator that resided snugly in the pouch of his coverall .

  CHAPTER XXI

  One of the more remarkable pieces of technology to come out of the Hub was the development of the sling nets, by means of which hundred tonne slabs of rough-cut nickel iron could be captured out of orbit around Syman and accelerated to a tenth of the speed of light and sent on a precise trajectory for a twenty-year flight through space. No steel could stand the tensile stresses of the space sling; a clever composite had been devised. At the centre of each strand was a fine filament of metal so highly compressed that its atoms had been broken up and its component electrons and nuclei jammed together into a state of matter nearly as dense as that of white dwarfs. Around this incredible thread, no piece of which had ever been known to break and which alone contributed ninety eight percent of the net's weight, had been drawn a sheath of space-alloy able to stand the attrition and the stresses of the job even in the coldness of space. Many strands of the composite had been twisted together to make cable, and from the cable was woven the great nets which constituted the cosmic slings. On Syman, sling nets were plentiful.