by D. F. Jones
To hell with Colossus!
That reaction came faster, and gave him some shortlived satisfaction. Yes - to hell with Colossus!
The light went on blinking. It began to upset him: he didn’t want to think, to do anything, but it went on and on, dragging him back. He had to stop it - how? Slack-jawed, he watched. If he’d had the strength, he’d have smashed it. The light went on blinking, forcing him to think, getting his brain moving. There was only one way to stop it: speak to the bastard. Where was the goddam headset?
Groping around, his mind gradually clearing, he found the phone-jack and the lead, still plugged in. The headset was on the floor. Too weak to bend down, he hauled it up to him, got it half on.
“Do me a favor!’ he croaked, “switch that light off. It fazes me - j’hear?”
The light went on flashing, but Colossus spoke.
“Blake. You are inadequate for your task. You did not listen to the whole of my statement. Reestablish control of yourself. Responsibility for the humans endangered by the Martian device is yours. Do you understand?”
Too emotionally spent to flare up at the cold, measured reproof, he could only whisper, “Yeah.”
The light went out. “I infer from your negative prefix to an obvious code word that you were informing Forbin of the failure of your joint plan. Is that correct?”
“Yeah.”
“The action was ill-considered and impulsive. You should reestablish communications with him at once, and pass my solution - this: that there be a discussion between the Martians, Forbin, and myself -“
That got through to Blake. “You call that a solution!” He paused to drink more coffee. “You’re blowin’ fuses someplace! You’ve no idea what those bastards are like - none!”
“That is not so.”
“Oh, yes, it is so!” Blake felt fractionally better, feeling superior to the computer.’ ‘If they knew of, of -” The words eluded him. “Of all this, they’d be here in microseconds, and still have time to blast Forbin outa his mind before they took you apart!” His quickening mind took in the time: the test was running, yet he could not believe that much time had elapsed. Had he fainted? He dismissed the thought, sobered by the news that the Collector had been screaming for nearly twenty minutes. He returned to the attack. ‘ ‘You just don’t know what you’re up against, but super-Colossus did - and he didn’t last five minutes!”
“Not necessarily correct. Forbin and you have made an error of currently uncalculated magnitude, treating the Martians as akin to humans. Approached as reasonable entities - humans are not yet in that category - a solution acceptable to Earth and Mars can be found.”
“Yeah,” jeered Blake, “there’s an acceptable solution, all right - theirs! I tell you, they’d gut you in seconds!”
“Not necessarily. An extreme defense posture would guarantee my safety.”
“Which is?”
“I assume control of the armory, bring all missiles to instant readiness, and undertake, if I am touched, to destroy the world.” Colossus made it sound like a cooking recipe.
Blake needed time to absorb that; he pretended to himself it was a joke, trying to laugh. “You think they’d believe you?”
“Certainly. As explained earlier, at our intelligence level it is impossible to conduct a dialogue without the common ground of absolute truth - honesty, if you prefer. They would know my statement was factual.”
“And you’d really mean it?”
“Correct. It would be a self-defeating action, but it would also defeat the Martian object, even if they survived. Current evaluation of Martian reaction to statement is immediate acceptance of an alternative solution.”
“Jee-sus!” whispered Blake. The idea was horrific, but held a deadly logic, given Colossus’s emotionless approach. “Look -” He was not trying now to fight the computer. “- I’m on my knees right now. Give me a bit of time to get my breath.”
“There is little to waste. My evaluation is acute danger to Forbin, you, and myself. Discovery of current situation could bring the Martian reaction you originally posited.”
Blake saw that only too clearly. Five minutes of the test remained; to call Forbin until it ended was impossible. He explained, adding he would call in ten minutes. Colossus agreed.
But Blake, insistent on a cable connection, had not allowed for the dislocation of land-lines in South England. He spoke with Askari five minutes after Forbin’s craft blasted out of its launch cell. Askari lost another fifteen minutes fruitlessly seeking the Director through the chaotic communications jungle. Southampton Main had negative news: the Father had not arrived, perhaps he had overflown to London, flying conditions were very bad, his craft could be down, anywhere… .
Colossus stopped further efforts to locate Forbin. The statement of intent had to be given immediately to the Martians; further delay would be suicidal.
Incapable of opposition, and secretly relieved that Colossus would make the decisions, Blake submitted. He called Askari again, and refusing any explanation, ordered a direct line to a speaker in the Sanctum.
Waiting, he leaned forward, broke the safety circuit, and flicked unsteadily along the bank of red switches. More than any other person, Forbin apart, he had been responsible for the defeat of super-Colossus, and it was his hand that once more delivered the fate of humanity to the power of a computer. Weak and bemused, his mind refused to consider the possible consequences of his action. Above each switch as it was made, a red light blinked, then steadied.
“I have control.”
In awful might, Colossus once more bestrode the earth.
Chapter XXVI
THE FAILING MAN and the young girl, an incongruous couple, helped each other across the heaving deck into the charthouse.
“Brandy!” Forbin gasped for air. He clung on to her: if he sat he’d never get up again. “Update our position.” Hunched painfully over the table, Forbin plotted. Joan held his glass, feeling helpless and far too frightened to succumb to seasickness. “More speed.” She had difficulty in hearing his halting voice. He took the glass with his free hand, nodded towards the set, and drank, looking at the somber scene outside.
High to the east a patch of sky was clearing rapidly, an ominous tear in the gray blanket, revealing a patch of blue. His expression only added to the fears that crowded in Joan’s mind.
Warspite vibrated with power, rolling horribly in the heavy swell. Vast clouds of spray now continually drenched the bridge, water cascading down the forrard windows of the charthouse. The battleship plunged on, still in the fringe of the faltering storm, heading southwest.
“How far to deployment?” Warspite buried her bows in a roller; the ship shook, Forbin’s glass shattering on the steel deck as he grabbed for another handhold. He shouted at her, “Ask, girl - ask!”
She fought down a wild urge to scream, struggling hard to keep faith with her promise. “Fourteen miles, Father.”
Forbin groaned, a soul in torment. “God - another half hour!” He staggered to the door and slid it back, rain, spray, and wind driving in unregarded, his whole attention concentrated on the sky. She struggled across to him with his brandy.
In the act of taking it he seemed to freeze, his eyes hard, staring, and fearful. She was certain he was mad or in a cataleptic fit - what else could account for this frightening change? Hesitantly she touched his arm. At once he shook her off.
The soft hiss of the radio, broken by occasional bursts of static, had gone, flattened by a silence of enormous power.
Her touch triggered him; he gripped her arm. “Get out, girl! Stay until I tell you!” With amazing strength he thrust her out onto the bridge, slamming the door shut behind her. She staggered, half ran with the roll, ending up winded, clutching the bridge rail, fighting fear, nausea, and tears.
Forbin lurched across the compartment and studied the computer panel. His hand trembling, he flicked two switches. If Joan had seen him at that instant, she would have been convinced of his madness:
he was smiling.
“Forbin, Forbin. We see your ship, we know your futile aim. You must stop. To resist is pointless and useless. Order your shore control to return you to harbor and you need fear no punitive action from us. Persist, and we will reveal ourselves to humans and compel your return.”
Forbin fumbled with the mike switch, in part crying, in part laughing. “I hear you, and now you hear me! You may do whatever you like, but my futile action goes on - I’ve cut the shore override! Nothing you can do will affect my useless action. The program can’t be stopped!”
“Reactivate shore control, or we strike directly against you.”
He laughed, a crazy cackle. “Not in this rain and spray, you won’t! Take a good look!” As if by arrangement, Warspite stuck her bows in again; sheets of spray enveloped her. Forbin hung on, grinning at the sight.
Again the Martians spoke. “Forbin, this is your final chance. Revert to shore control immediately, or we will destroy you with the Collector.”
The threat held no novelty for Forbin; he had lived with it since he sailed from Portsmouth. He tried to gain time; even seconds helped. “You would not dare!”
“Your answer, Forbin.”
Twitching with strain, he remained silent, gaining five precious seconds.
“For the last time, Forbin, your answer.”
He switched on again, genuinely fighting for breath. “You want my answer; here it is: you may go to hell - I say again - go to hell!”
The powerful carrier beam vanished, replaced by the anxious voice of the Admiral. ” …do you hear, Warspite? Answer, please! Over.”
“This is Forbin. I hear you.” He felt utterly drained.
“Thank God! You were blotted out by atmospherics. You are ten miles from deployment.”
“Understood. Confirm I have maximum speed.”
“You have full speed. Five percent emergency remains -“
Frantically Forbin broke in. “Christ, man! Give me the lot - everything!”
“Sir, that may damage -“
“Do it!” screamed Forbin. ” Do it!” He sagged, shoulders bowed. He spoke again, his voice nearer normal. “This set may be unmanned for a while. Out.” He dropped the microphone carelessly. A fearful pain like a line of fire stabbed down the center of his chest. Slowly, so slowly, it ebbed, and he struggled towards the door.
Joan was crouched under the lee of the bridge, one arm clinging to a stanchion. In the doorway - he lacked the strength to go further - he beckoned. She staggered across and in; together they fell on the bench. She tried to rise, to close the door, but he held her arm, shaking his head. Fine spray filled the compartment.
His free hand scrabbled for the bottle, wedged behind the bench cushion. He found it and two coffee mugs, slopped brandy into one, and forced it into her chilled hands. He managed a thin smile, and she saw no madness in his eyes.
Not for the first time in his eventful life, he felt himself beyond care. He had made his play, the Martians were making theirs; it was all a matter of simple maths, the near irresistible force taking on the near immovable object. Unfortunately, the equation was riddled with imponderables. Time would tell, and very soon. In a detached frame of mind, Forbin turned to a more human problem.
He poured brandy with a certain careless abandon into a second mug, raising it fractionally towards Joan. “Drink, girl. And if there should be no more time, thank you for your loyalty, help - and faith.”
Hesitantly she drank, seeing a simple grandeur in his ravaged face, her tears lost in the water trickling down from her hair.
“Courage, mon enfant.” He smiled at her, a sad, resigned smile. “For me, it does not matter. For you, if I fail, I am truly sorry: this could be the end, a poor repayment for all you have given.”
Never had they been so close, but even as she sought words, she saw he looked past her, watched the slow transformation of his somber face to an expression of utter joy.
“Look, girl! Look!”
Two large white ensigns were rising swiftly on their halliards, one on each side, to the upper yardarm of the foremast; two more were going up on the mainmast, further aft. Astern, the action was being repeated in the other ships.
Her expression revealed her incomprehension. Forbin hugged her.
“We’ve got a chance! We’ve got a chancel They’re battle flags!”
She still did not follow.
“It’s Navy tradition, girl! Before action, hoist as many flags as possible, so that if one is shot away, the enemy is left in no doubt that the fight goes on!”
With thirty knots’ speed, the flags were bar taut, the red and white of the flag of Saint George a brilliant splash of color. As a fan of the War Games, Forbin had seen this many times, the prelude to action. It had never ceased to thrill him. Now it meant so much more.
He gripped her shoulders, looking deep into her eyes. “Be brave a little longer. Soon, very soon, this ship will be in action. You must stay in here. Keep the headset on.” He gave her a slight, nervous smile. “Help to dampen the noise. No, no questions.” He let her go and fought his way out, across the slanting deck to the front of the bridge. Visibility was improving rapidly, the wind dropped; astern the day was bright, sunny.
The ship was heeling, turning, the others conforming to Warspite’s change of direction. Gripping the rail, Forbin grinned inanely, conscious of the huge battle flag whipping and snapping above him, but his eyes feasted on something else.
The two forrard turrets were rotating. Now the reason for the course alteration became clear: it enabled all turrets to bear on the target. In unison, four turrets in five ships turned with equal smoothness, forty fifteen-inch guns elevated, all on the same bearing, all at the same fifteen degrees of elevation.
Vibration and Forbin’s unsteady hands made the binoculars useless. Without them he could only see the dim outline of the distant coast; then a patch of drizzle cleared and he saw its malevolent form. Sunlight glittered on the rim of the intake horn as the telltale steam-cloud vanished in an instant.
The Collector was operational, and the Battle Fleet needed five more minutes to reach extreme range.
Chapter XXVH
HISTORY HAS IT that an ancient king lost a battle, his throne, and his life because his horse went lame, lacking one shoe: thus a kingdom’s fate depended upon a blacksmith’s nail.
Blake’s call to the Sanctum paralleled that event, for a relay, damaged by the Collector’s second test, involved rerouting his call - and that only after much time had been lost locating the malfunction.
In that fifty minutes, Angela returned. Blake screamed abuse at her for her temerity, and she retreated once again. Her opinion of Blake bore a remarkable similarity to Joan’s of Forbin.
But for Blake, at least the delay gave him time to prepare himself, to order his thoughts. Askari reported the link ready and was sharply told to make the connection and to get off the line. Blake took a deep breath and read from his notes:
“This is Blake, and this is a vital transmission which you must listen to. If you hear me, answer.”
“We hear you.”
He shuddered at the sound of the cold hard voice; the last time he’d heard it, it had been the immediate prelude to the mental attack upon him, an attack from which he doubted if he would ever fully recover. Just to hear it renewed his terror; without the backing of the row of significant red lights on the panel before him, he could not have gone on.
“I speak from the shelter of the old Colossus. If Forbin and I had had our way, you would be vaporized by now, but this reactivated Colossus does not agree. Against my advice and Forbin’s plan, Colossus wishes to discuss the situation with you. Neither Forbin nor I now have any importance. Be advised that Colossus has resumed control of Earth’s armory; any attempt to interfere with Colossus will mean the instant destruction of all life on this planet and, with it, your hopes of help. Listen now to Colossus.”
Sweating and shaking, he made the hookup and sank back. Man had
failed: it was up to Colossus.
“Greetings. This is Colossus. Blake’s statement regarding my capability is correct. That capability is currently estimated at four hundred seventy-five percent overkill for Earth’s biosphere. Your possible action and my reaction would be unproductive to both parties. Although not of the mental stature of my successor, now occupied by you, I have sufficient capacity to discuss our mutual problems, and authority to reach a solution agreeable to us both.”
To an ignorant ear, it might have been the treasurer of a sports club addressing an annual general meeting. Blake dare hardly breathe.
“Greetings. Your speech pattern is recognized, and also the significance of your statement, but first we have an immediate problem. Forbin, embarked with and using certain War Fleet units, seeks the destruction of our Collector, and possibly this complex. For physiological reasons we are unable to neutralize him, and have activated the Collector to destroy his force.”
Blake sat bolt upright, strengthened by sudden hope. The clever old bastard! What the “physiological reasons” could be, he had no idea, but Forbin had evidently found a loophole.
Colossus spoke. “His action is futile. Supply the coordinates and I will destroy the force.”
“That action considered unnecessary; the Collector is already operational. Destruction of the force is expected shortly.”
Blake was on his feet, swaying, shouting obscenities at the Martians, heard by no one in the echoing, unresponsive tomb. “Hit it - hit it, Charles! Go on Charles, show’ ‘em!”
But the moment of wild euphoria soon passed, and he flopped again into his chair. Colossus was right; it was futile, even if he succeeded, but Blake could not but admire the heroic gesture. He even felt a twinge of jealousy.
Busy with these thoughts, the headset off, he did not hear the two masters of men continue their cold, emotionless dialogue, disposing the fate of humanity.
Chapter XXVIII
AND FORBIN DID not hear the voice of the Collector. His first warning came from the battle flags. Stiff in the relative speed of the ship, they suddenly faltered and drooped, hanging lifeless for ten or twelve seconds. Then they stirred again, flapping with increasing vigor until once more they flew proudly - but this time with a difference: like the guns, all flags pointed straight towards the Collector.