by Hank Davis
He had been waiting almost a year now, for that little arrow. Little arrow. Little narrow. Little arrow. Little narrow.
Stop it.
That was when he would start firing.
Lieutenant Nielson lifted his hands into view and inspected his nails. Fastidiously he cleaned a bit of dirt out of one. He interlocked his fingers again, and looked at the pretty buttons, the black arrow, the red line.
He smiled to himself. He had promised the general. Only three days ago.
So he pretended not to hear what the buttons were whispering to him.
“The thing I don’t see,” Ellsner said, “is why you can’t do something about the pattern? Retreat and regroup, for example?”
“I’ll explain that,” Margraves said. “It’ll give Ed a chance for a drink. Come over here.” He led Ellsner to an instrument panel. They had been showing Ellsner around the ship for three days, more to relieve their own tension than for any other reason. The last day had turned into a fairly prolonged drinking bout.
“Do you see this dial?” Margraves pointed to one. The instrument panel covered an area four feet wide by twenty feet long. The buttons and switches on it controlled the movements of the entire fleet. Notice the shaded area. That marks the safety limit. If we use a forbidden configuration, the indicator goes over and all hell breaks loose.”
“And what is a forbidden configuration?”
Margraves thought for a moment. “The forbidden configurations are those which would give the enemy an attack advantage. Or, to put it in another way, moves which change the attack-probability-loss picture sufficiently to warrant an attack.”
“So you can move only within strict limits?” Ellsner asked, looking at the dial.
“That’s right. Out of the infinite number of possible formations, we can use only a few, if we want to play safe. It’s like chess. Say you’d like to put a sixth row pawn in your opponent’s back row. But it would take two moves to do it. And after you move to the seventh row, your opponent has a clear avenue, leading inevitably to checkmate.
“Of course, if the enemy advances too boldly the odds are changed again, and we attack.”
“That’s our only hope,” General Branch said. “We’re praying they do something wrong. The fleet is in readiness for instant attack, if our CPC shows that the enemy has overextended himself anywhere.”
“And that’s the reason for the crack-ups,” Ellsner said. “Every man in the fleet on nerves’ edge, waiting for a chance he’s sure will never come. But having to wait anyhow. How long will this go on?”
“This moving and checking can go on for a little over two years,” Branch said. “Then they will be in the optimum formation for attack, with a twenty-eight-percent loss probability to our ninety-three. They’ll have to attack then, or the probabilities will start to shift back in our favor.”
“You poor devils,” Ellsner said softly. “Waiting for a chance that’s never going to come. Knowing you’re going to be blasted out of space sooner or later.”
“Oh, it’s jolly,” said Margraves, with an instinctive dislike for a civilian’s sympathy.
Something buzzed on the switchboard, and Branch walked over and plugged in a line. “Hello? Yes. Yes . . . All right, Williams. Right.” He unplugged the line.
“Colonel Williams has had to lock his men in their rooms,” Branch said. “That’s the third time this month. I’ll have to get CPC to dope out a formation so we can take him out of the front.” He walked to a side panel and started pushing buttons.
“And there it is,” Margraves said. “What do you plan to do, Mr. Presidential Representative?”
The glittering dots shifted and deployed, advanced and retreated, always keeping a barrier of black space between them. The mechanical chess players watched each move, calculating its effect into the far future. Back and forth across the great chess board the pieces moved.
The chess players worked dispassionately, knowing beforehand the outcome of the game. In their strictly ordered universe there was no possible fluctuation, no stupidity, no failure.
They moved. And knew. And moved.
“Oh, yes,” Lieutenant Nielson said to the smiling room. “Oh, yes.” And look at all the buttons, he thought, laughing to himself.
So stupid. Georgia.
Nielson accepted the deep blue of sanctity, draping it across his shoulders. Bird song, somewhere.
Of course.
Three buttons red. He pushed them. Three buttons green. He pushed them. Four dials. Riverread.
“Oh-oh. Nielson’s cracked.”
“Three is for me,” Nielson said, and touched his forehead with greatest stealth. Then he reached for the keyboard again. Unimaginable associations raced through his mind, produced by unaccountable stimuli.
“Better grab him. Watch out!”
Gentle hands surround me as I push two are brown for which is for mother, and one is high for all rest.
“Stop him from shooting off those guns!”
I am lifted into the air, I fly, I fly.
“Is there any hope for that man?” Ellsner asked, after they had locked Nielson in a ward.
“Who knows,” Branch said. His broad face tightened; knots of muscle pushed out his cheeks. Suddenly he turned, shouted, and swung his fist wildly at the metal wall. After it hit, he grunted and grinned sheepishly.
“Silly, isn’t it? Margraves drinks. I let off steam by hitting walls. Let’s go eat.”
The officers ate separate from the crew. Branch had found that some officers tended to get murdered by psychotic crewmen. It was best to keep them apart.
During the meal, Branch suddenly turned to Ellsner.
“Boy, I haven’t told you the entire truth. I said this would go on for two years? Well, the men won’t last that long. I don’t know if I can hold this fleet together for two more weeks.”
“What would you suggest?”
“I don’t know,” Branch said. He still refused to consider surrender, although he knew it was the only realistic answer.
“I’m not sure,” Ellsner said, “but I think there may be a way out of your dilemma.” The officers stopped eating and looked at him.
“Have you got some superweapons for us?” Margraves asked. “A disintegrator strapped to your chest?”
“I’m afraid not. But I think you’ve been so close to the situation that you don’t see it in its true light. A case of the forest for the trees.”
“Go on,” Branch said, munching methodically on a piece of bread.
“Consider the universe as the CPC sees it. A world of strict causality. A logical, coherent universe. In this world, every effect has a cause. Every factor can be instantly accounted for.
“That’s not a picture of the real world. There is no explanation for everything, really. The CPC is built to see a specialized universe, and to extrapolate on the basis of that.”
“So,” Margraves said, “what would you do?”
“Throw the world out of joint,” Ellsner said. “Bring in uncertainty. Add a human factor that the machines can’t calculate.”
“How can you introduce uncertainty in a chess game?” Branch asked, interested in spite of himself.
“By sneezing at a crucial moment, perhaps. How could a machine calculate that?”
“It wouldn’t have to. It would just classify it as extraneous noise, and ignore it.”
“True.” Ellsner thought for a moment. “This battle—how long will it take once the actual hostilities are begun?”
“About six minutes,” Branch told him. “Plus or minus twenty seconds.”
“That confirms an idea of mine,” Ellsner said. “The chess game analogy you use is faulty. There’s no real comparison.”
“It’s a convenient way of thinking of it,” Margraves said.
“But it’s an untrue way of thinking of it. Checkmating a king can’t be equated with destroying a fleet. Nor is the rest of the situation like chess. In chess you play by rules previously agreed
upon by the players. In this game you can make up your own rules.”
“This game has inherent rules of its own,” Branch said.
“No,” Ellsner said. “Only the CPC’s have rules. How about this? Suppose you dispensed with the CPCs? Gave every commander his head, told him to attack on his own, with no pattern. What would happen?”
“It wouldn’t work,” Margraves told him. “The CPC can still total the picture, on the basis of the planning ability of the average human. More than that, they can handle the attack of a few thousand second-rate calculators—humans—with ease. It would be like shooting clay pigeons.”
“But you’ve got to try something,” Ellsner pleaded.
“Now wait a minute,” Branch said. “You can spout theory all you want. I know what the CPCs tell me, and I believe them. I’m still in command of this fleet, and I’m not going to risk the lives in my command on some harebrained scheme.”
“Harebrained schemes sometimes win wars,” Ellsner said.
“They usually lose them.”
“The war is lost already, by your own admission.”
“I can still wait for them to make a mistake.”
“Do you think it will come?”
“No.”
“Well then?”
“I’m still going to wait.”
The rest of the meal was completed in moody silence. Afterward, Ellsner went to his room.
“Well, Ed?” Margraves asked, unbuttoning his shirt.
“Well yourself,” the general said. He lay down on his bed, trying not to think. It was too much. Logistics. Predetermined battles. The coming debacle. He considered slamming his fist against the wall, but decided against it. It was sprained already. He was going to sleep.
On the borderline between slumber and sleep, he heard a click.
The door!
Branch jumped out of bed and tried the knob. Then he threw himself against it.
Locked.
“General, please strap yourself down. We are attacking.” It was Ellsner’s voice, over the intercom. “I looked over that keyboard of yours, sir, and found the magnetic doorlocks. Mighty handy in case of a mutiny, isn’t it?”
“You idiot!” Branch shouted. “You’ll kill us all! That CPC—”
“I’ve disconnected our CPC,” Ellsner said pleasantly. “I’m a pretty logical boy, and I think I know how a sneeze will bother them.”
“He’s mad,” Margraves shouted to Branch. Together they threw themselves against the metal door.
Then they were thrown to the floor.
“All gunners—fire at will!” Ellsner broadcasted to the fleet.
The ship was in motion. The attack was underway!
The dots drifted together, crossing the no man’s land of space.
They coalesced! Energy flared, and the battle was joined.
Six minutes, human time. Hours for the electronically fast chess player. He checked his pieces for an instant, deducing the pattern of attack.
There was no pattern!
Half of the opposing chess player’s pieces shot out into space, completely out of the battle. Whole flanks advanced, split, rejoined, wrenched forward, dissolved their formation, formed it again.
No pattern? There had to be a pattern. The chess player knew that everything had a pattern. It was just a question of finding it, of taking the moves already made and extrapolating to determine what the end was supposed to be.
The end was—chaos!
The dots swept in and out, shot away at right angles to the battle, checked and returned, meaninglessly.
What did it mean, the chess player asked himself with the calmness of metal. He waited for a recognizable configuration to emerge.
Watching dispassionately as his pieces were swept off the board.
“I’m letting you out of your room now,” Ellsner called, “but don’t try to stop me. I think I’ve won your battle.”
The lock released. The two officers ran down the corridor to the bridge, determined to break Ellsner into little pieces.
Inside, they slowed down.
The screen showed the great mass of Earth dots sweeping over a scattering of enemy dots.
What stopped them, however, was Nielson, laughing, his hands sweeping over switches and buttons on the great master control board.
The CPC was droning the losses. “Earth—eighteen percent. Enemy—eighty-three. Eighty-four. Eighty-six. Earth, nineteen percent.”
“Mate!” Ellsner shouted. He stood beside Nielson, a Stillson wrench clenched in his hand. “Lack of pattern. I gave their CPC something it couldn’t handle. An attack with no apparent pattern. Meaningless configurations!”
“But what are they doing?” Branch asked, gesturing at the dwindling enemy dots.
“Still relying on their chess player,” Ellsner said. “Still waiting for him to dope out the attack pattern in this madman’s mind. Too much faith in machines, general. This man doesn’t even know he’s precipitating an attack.”
. . . And push three that’s for dad on the olive tree I always wanted to two two two Danbury fair with buckle shoe brown all brown buttons down and in, sin, eight red for sin—
“What’s the wrench for?” Margraves asked.
“That?” Ellsner weighed it in his hand. “That’s to turn off Nielson here, after the attack.”
. . . And five and love and black, all blacks, fair buttons in I remember when 1 was very young at all push five and there on the grass ouch—
Airborne All The Way!
by David Drake
Just a routine mission to drop rocks on the enemy from a balloon. Even if the crew was a few spells short of a grimoire, what could go wrong?
This anthology is an assemblage of military science fiction stories which happen to be humorous . . . except for this one, which happens to be humorous military fantasy. But, it’s by David Drake, creator of the now-classic Hammers Slammers series and a past master of military SF, and someone who absolutely had to be in the book. I could fudge a bit and say that this is really SF because it’s obviously taking place in a parallel universe where magic works, but never mind. The important thing is that this story is both funny and ingenious, and as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” so here it is .and with goblins too (probably not hobgloblins, though, since they’re usually smarter than goblins). Or to further plunder Mr. Bartlett’s compilation, this time from William Cowper, “Variety is the spice of life.” Have a bit of spice in your reading.
David Drake, author of the best-selling Hammer’s Slammers future mercenary series, is often referred to as the Dean of military science fiction, but is much more versatile than that label might suggest, as shown by his epic fantasy series that began with Lord of the Isles (Tor), and his equally popular Republic of Cinnabar Navy series (Baen) starring the indefatigable team of Leary and Mundy. He lives near Chapel Hill, NC, with his family.
Crewgoblin Dumber Than #3 stared with his usual look of puzzlement as labor goblins unrolled Balloon Prima. He scratched his chain mail jockstrap and said to Dog Squat, the balloon chief, “I dunno, boss.”
Dog Squat rolled her eyes expressively and muttered, “Mana give me strength!” She glanced covertly to see if Roxanne was watching what balloon chiefs had to put up with, but the senior thaumaturge was involved with the team of dragon wranglers bringing the whelp into position in front of the coal pile.
Dog Squat glowered at her four crewgoblins. “Well, what don’t you know?” she snarled. “What is there to know? We go up, we throw rocks down. You like to throw rocks, Number Three?”
“I like to bite them,” said Dumber Than #1. “Will we be able to bite them, Dog Squat?”
The plateau on which the Balloon Brigade was readying for battle overlooked the enemy on the broad plain below. The hostile command group, pulsing with white mana, had taken its station well to the rear. White battalions were deploying directly from their line of march. Gullies and knolls skewed the
rectangles of troops slightly, but the formations were still precise enough to make a goblin’s disorderly mind ache.
“But boss,” #3 said, “how do we get down again?”
“Getting down’s the easy part!” Dog Squat shouted. “Rocks aren’t any smarter than you are, and they manage to get down, don’t they? Well, not much smarter. Just leave the thinking to me, why don’t you?”
“I really like to bite them,” #1 repeated. He scraped at a black, gleaming fang with a black, gleaming foreclaw. “After we throw rocks, will we be able to bite them, Dog Squat?”
Dog Squat tried to visualize biting from a balloon. The closest she could come was a sort of ruddy blur that made her head ache worse than sight of the serried, white-clad ranks on the plains below. “No biting unless I tell you!” she said to cover ignorance. “Not even a teeny little bite!”
The large pile of coal was ready for ignition. The metal cover sat on the ground behind for the moment. Instead of forging a simple dome, the smiths had created a gigantic horned helmet. To either side of the coal was a sloped dirt ramp so that labor goblins could carry the helmet over the pile and cap it when the time came.
Balloons Prima and Secundus were unrolled to either side, and the three wranglers had finally gotten their dragon whelp into position in front of the pile. The other unfilled balloons waited their turn in double lines. It was time to start.
“All right, Theobald!” Senior Thaumaturge Roxanne said to the junior thaumaturge accompanying her, a mana specialist. “Get to work and don’t waste a lot of time. We’re already forty minutes behind schedule. Malfegor will singe the skin off me if we don’t launch an attack before noon, and I promise that you won’t be around to snicker if that happens.”
Roxanne strode over to Dog Squat and her crew. The balloon chief tried to straighten like a human coming to attention; she wobbled dangerously. A goblin’s broad shoulders and heavy, fanged skull raised the body’s center of gravity too high unless the hips were splayed back and the knuckles kept usefully close to the ground.