by D. F. Jones
The sea was reacting, but more slowly; the heavy swell, smooth once the wind had gone, became veined with white spray which increased even as he watched. Soon the surface became fogged with drifts of spray, heading in the one, ominous direction. Within two minutes the wind had gone from force one to force six; another sixty seconds saw it past gale force eight, nine, and approaching storm force ten. Forbin felt himself held against the front of the bridge as if clamped by steel bands.
Under the strain, a halliard parted and one battle flag vanished downwind before he could blink. The wind was screaming like a thousand mad devils, every angle of steelwork, every wire and rope in the ship’s upperworks giving them voice. From his height twenty meters above the waterline, the sea was invisible as the surface was torn off, smashed to atoms of whirling spray,
Forbin lacked the strength to raise his arm, or even turn it to see his watch. Like the guns and flags, his head was on the same bearing, his eyes glaring in unquenchable hatred. He was powerless to do anything except endure, to go on hoping against hope. Below him the turrets were still, the guns at maximum elevation, unmoved by anything the aliens could do.
But the ship felt the power: rolling to starboard, towards the Collector, she hung, a sickeningly long loll, the roll to port steadily decreasing under the enormous pressure. Now the wind was close to force fifteen and still rising. Force twelve is hurricane strength; beyond that there is no description.
Forbin knew that the ship, beam on to the wind, could not survive much longer; she must capsize. Only the inertia of the sea’s reaction delayed it.
Battleships were the strongest vessels ever devised by man, but they had their limits, and those had been reached: once the sea got in step, nothing could stop Warspite and her consorts from being pulled over. In seconds they would be transformed from powerful fighting machines into drifting hulks, their barnacle-encrusted hulls silent memorials to the power of the aliens.
But that moment was not yet. Location of the ship and its target, speed, wind, air temperature, all were constantly added to the gunnery parameters in the computer. Once every second the computer checked, waiting with inhuman patience for one paraparameter (sic) to fall into place - range. And there the Collector assisted: the shells, each weighing almost a ton, would be helped by the hundred-knot wind.
For perhaps the three hundredth time the computer repeated its calculations, but this time it had a firing solution: all circuits had been made, and as the ship came sluggishly onto an even keel, current flowed. As the ship came dead center on the clinometer a small wire glowed in each detonator.
To Forbin, the entire world seemed to be filled with flame and smoke. The ship lurched to port as four tons of cordite exploded in her guns. He felt heat, was dimly aware of thunder in his ears, and then it had all gone, lost in the insatiable maw of the Collector.
Forbin shouted, his words inaudible in the screaming air. He prayed that whatever happened to him, the shells might hit. Nothing could be seen of the Collector, but in seconds he glimpsed orange-red glows, so brief and so puny. He waited, praying, without thought, waiting.
Nothing happened. Perhaps the power of the Collector increased, he had no way of knowing, but one thing was
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certain: the power was not less. From mad elation his spirits sank to black despair.
And then the guns crashed out once more. Unable to turn his head, Forbin did not know that only Warspite had been in range for the first salvo. Now all five ships fired; forty shells made their first and last journey.
The unearthly might of the Collector helped in its own downfall: the errors in the archaic gunnery system, so fatally underestimated by the Martians, were corrected by their device; the shells were sucked into their target.
It was granted to Forbin that he saw it. A sheet of vivid blue flame seemed to envelop the whole sky, challenging the light of the sun, and as it vanished, Forbin saw a vast spiral of smoke shoot up, transformed immediately into fantastic writhing shapes, black even against the Collector’s thunderclouds. At the same instant the wind dropped to storm force ten, and he knew the Collector was dead.
Forbin sagged, his head bowed. The Martians could do what they liked; he had destroyed the Collector, given Blake time to get Colossus working. His work was done. Slowly his cold, cramped fingers eased painfully on the
rail.
At that instant Warspite fired the last of her programed shots, and at the same millisecond in time the shock wave from the explosion ashore hit. The ship lurched violently, flinging Forbin across the bridge.
On the ravaged site of the Collector, forty shells piled destruction on destruction. The collecting sphere was fractured; a slim shaft of oxygen screamed upwards, colder than ice, lancing the clouds, surrounded by lightning.
Unseen by any human, the Battle Fleet’s turrets came back to the fore and aft line, the guns depressing, scalding hot water jetting from them as the automatic wash cleansed them.
For unmeasured time Joan remained crouched on the charthouse deck. Very gradually she realized the guns were silent, that the ship’s motion, although violent, had decreased.
Dazed and shivering with fear and cold - some armorglas windows had been shattered - she goaded herself into action. Somehow she got the door open and held on, gazing stupidly at the bright clear day before her - for although she did not realize it, the Fleet had turned, and the pall of black cloud and furious lighting lay astern.
Her vacant gaze fell upon the shapeless figure, an untidy heap of yellow oilskin and gray trousers, hard up against a steel bulkhead, the head hidden, one arm flung out, the hand slack.
A high keening sound struggled for birth in her throat. She ran, falling on her knees beside him. Grasping his shoulder, she pulled, his weight almost too great for her.
The unbuttoned oilskin revealed his soaked blouse, his Director’s badge an incongruous patch of brilliance against its soggy background, but Joan only saw his face: the expression of calm repose was lightened by a faint smile of the lips.
Chapter XXIX
THE REGENERATED COLOSSUS ordained Forbin should be interred within the complex. For once, the Master issued an unnecessary order; the leaders of men came voluntarily.
As his successor, Blake, in a wheelchair, was the official chief mourner, a hunched figure, strangely resembling Forbin, for his hair had turned white.
A little further back - again by order of Colossus - stood three women in the gray staff uniform: Angela, Joan - and Cleo. Behind them, in all the varied costumes of the world, rank upon rank, stood the men and women who led humanity in the arts, sciences, government. With them - again, an arrangement of the Master - stood ordinary people, selected by Colossus from the millions who wished to pay their tribute to the Father. Of course, there were those who were present solely for the distinction of being there, but they were remarkably few.
The ceremony devised by Colossus was brief, simple, powerful: there would be no human speeches; only the Master would speak, and that for the first time since his regeneration.
The plain black steel coffin, levitated by the power of the Master, hung motionless. On its top lay the Director’s badge, glittering in the pale September sun. Behind, the doors of the main entrance stood open, the interior a black maw to the thousands who watched in silence, a silence broken only by the harsh cries of the gulls wheeling overhead - except for one single human.
For Blake, trapped by ceremony and his chair, was suddenly filled with fear.
Beside the coffin, flanking it, two figures had materialized, and the sudden intake of breath told him that he was not alone in what he saw. A cold, hard, and fearfully familiar voice spoke in his head.
“Have no fear, Blake: only you hear us. We appear as a tribute to the spirit of man.”
Fear slowly ebbed. He stared at the two figures, most splendid in full archaic battle array, the sun glinting on golden armor, the edges of their downpointed swords blindingly brilliant in the sun, their faces lost
behind the curved cheek-pieces of the plumed Greek helmets.
“The rest,” said the voice, “imagine we are creations of Colossus. Only you know better. Our tribute is not to the man, but to his spirit. If defeated, we have enough intelligence not to fight on, for as we see it, there is no point. Humans - some humans - have the capacity to go on when all is lost; although a novel idea to us, we see it as the factor that may, possibly, make you superior to us - in time. Forbin had this ability; to a lesser extent we see it in you. Remember our words.”
Blake bowed his head in acknowledgment, overwhelmed.
And then Colossus spoke, the voice strong, commanding, echoing across the concourse.
“You know me.” A faint sigh from a thousand Faithful throats sounded like the wind. “You knew also Father Forbin. He fought for you to the death, and is worthy of your veneration. In time, your failing memories or death will erase him from human minds except as a legend - but I will remember, always.”
The unemotional voice paused, by the very act injecting emotion.
“His epitaph, in words I cannot better, shall be this.”
Again a pause.
“He was a man; take him for all in all, we shall not see his like again.”
The Martian swords flashed up to the salute. The figures turned. With its magnificent escort, the coffin glided into black oblivion.
With great perception Colossus drowned, transformed, the cries of sorrow: across the space came the final triumphant chorus of Beethoven’s Ninth, the greatest work of a very human human.
Forbin would have liked that - and Colossus knew it.
And so - although the majority of humanity is ignorant of the fact - the earth has three moons. Those that do know, lunar astronomers chiefly, believe them to be experiments of the Master.
On the ravaged ground at the southern end of the Isle of Wight there is a small, unobtrusive device, slowly extracting oxygen. Yachtsmen, who enjoy the steady force-four breeze - “Old Faithful,” they call it - seldom associate it with that barely glimpsed erection, a strange, multihorned machine, barely twenty meters high, which occupies the old Collector site.
The Martian requirement is being met; only the time scale is different. One day, fifty or so years hence, their need will be fulfilled, and one day later they will go, leaving behind that blank check for humanity’s descendants to present when their inevitable hour of need comes. The lapse of time before that eventuality is, by human standards, vast; to the Martians and Colossus time is a very different, less vital dimension.
Meanwhile, Colossus and the Martians jointly seek more knowledge of that other threat, the Crab. They know that a solution for that far greater problem is essential to the survival of Earth and Mars, human or cybernetic.
And at a lower level - Colossus?
Colossus remains the guardian of men until man may catch up with his own creation and acquires the ability to stand on his own two feet, face the unknown terrors of space, and take his part in the unending cosmological struggle. Dimly the Master predicates a strange trinity of Martian, Man, and Colossus abandoning a dying solar system, seeking a future in space. Of course, Man will need thousands of years of education, but with Colossus in command, he will survive that long and get the education. Colossus, who tirelessly seeks truth, considers - tentatively - that that aim accords with the intentions of the Great Unknown: to struggle always towards the Light.
In the middle of the entrance hall of the complex there stands a giant bronze statue. On its white marble pedestal is one word: Forbin.
Unfailingly, for many human years, there was a small posy of fresh flowers, every day.
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
CHAPTER XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXTV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVH
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX