by Hank Davis
Bade snapped on a microphone lettered “Supply, Ground.” In the half-circle atop the microphone appeared an officer in the last stage of sleepless exhaustion. The officer’s eyes twitched, and his skin had a drawn dull look. His head was slumped on his hand.
“Supply?” said Bade in alarm.
“Sorry,” mumbled the officer, “we can’t do it. We’re overstretched already. Try Flyer Command. Maybe they’ll parachute it to you.”
Bade switched off, and glanced at the map again. He turned to Runckel. “Listen, what are we using for transport?”
“The enemy ground-cars.”
“Fast, aren’t they?”
Runckel smiled cheerfully. “They are built for speed. Rast grabbed a whole fleet of them to start with, and they’ve worked fine ever since. A few wrecks, some bad cases of kinkfoot, but that’s all.”
“What the devil is ‘kinkfoot’?”
“Well, the enemy have tiny feet with little toes and no webs at all. Some of their ground-car controls are on the floor. There just isn’t much space so our men’s feet get cramped. It’s just a mild irritation.” Runckel smiled vaguely. “Nothing to worry about.”
Bade squinted hard at Runckel. “What’s Supply using for transport?”
“Steam trucks, of course.”
“Do they work all right, or do they jump?”
Runckel smiled dreamily. “They work fine.”
Bade snapped on the Supply microphone. The same weary officer appeared, his head in his hands, and mumbled, “Sorry. We’re overloaded. Try Flyer Command.”
Bade said angrily, “Wake up a minute.”
The man raised his head, blinked at Bade, then straightened as if hauled by the back of the collar.
“Sir?”
“What’s the overall supply picture?”
“Sir, it’s awful. Terrible.”
“What’s the matter?”
“The advance is so fast, and the units are all mixed up, and when we get to a place, they’ve already pulled out. Worse yet, the steam trucks—” He hesitated, as if afraid to go on.
“Speak up,” snapped Bade. “What’s wrong with the trucks? Is it the engines? Fuel? Running gear? What is it?”
“It’s . . . the water, sir.”
“The water?”
“Sir, there’s that constant loss of steam out the exhaust. At home, we just throw a few more buckets of water in the tank and go on. But here—”
“Oh,” said Bade, the situation dawning on him.
“But around here, sir,” said the officer, “they’ve had something called a ‘severe drought.’ The streams are dry.”
“Can you dig down?”
“Sir, at best there’s just muck. We know there’s water here somewhere, but meanwhile our trucks are stalled all over the country with the men dug down out of sight, and the natives standing around shaking their heads, and sure, there’s got to be water down there somewhere, but what do we use right now?”
Bade took a deep breath. “What about the enemy trucks? Can’t you use them?”
“If we’d started off with them, I suppose we could have. But Ground Forces has requisitioned most of them. Now we’re spread out in all directions with the front getting farther away all the time.”
Bade switched off and got in touch with Ground Forces, Maintenance. A spruce-looking major appeared. Bade paused a moment, then asked, “How’s your work-load, major? Are you behind schedule?”
The major looked shocked. “No, sir. Far from it. We’re away ahead of schedule.”
“Aren’t these enemy vehicles giving you any trouble? Any difficulties in repair?”
The major laughed. “Fangjaw, general, we don’t repair them! When they burn out, we throw them away. We pried up the hoods of some of them, pulled off the top two or three layers of machinery, and took a good look underneath. That was enough. There are hundreds of parts, all shapes and sizes. And dozens of different kinds of motors. Half of the parts are stuck so they won’t move when you try to get them out, and, to top it all, there isn’t enough room in there to squeeze in an extra grain of sand. So what’s the use? If something goes wrong with one of those things, we give it a shove off the road and forget it. There are plenty of others.”
“I see,” said Bade. “Do you send your repair crews out to shove the ground-cars off the road?”
“Oh, no, sir,” said the major looking startled. “Like the colonel says, ‘Let the Ground Forces do it.’ Sir, it doesn’t take any skill to do that. It’s just that that’s our policy: Don’t repair ‘em. Throw ‘em away.”
“What about our vehicles then? Have you found out what’s wrong?”
The major looked uncomfortable. “Well, the difficulty is that the vehicles work satisfactorily inside the ship, and for a little while outside. But then, after they’ve been out a while, a malfunction occurs in the mechanism. That’s what causes the trouble.” He looked at Bade hopefully. “Was there anything else, sir.”
“Yes,” said Bade dryly, “it’s the malfunction I’m interested in. What is it that goes wrong?”
The major looked unhappy. “Well, sir, we’ve had the motors apart and put back together I don’t know how many times, and the fact is, there’s nothing at all wrong with them. There’s nothing wrong, but they still won’t work. That’s not our department. We’ve handed the whole business over to the Testing Lab.”
“Then,” said Bade, “you actually don’t have any work to do?”
The major jumped. “Oh, no sir, I didn’t say that. We . . . we’re holding ourselves in readiness, sir, and we’ve got our shops in order, and some of the men are doing some very, ah, very important research on the . . . the structure of the enemy ground-car, and—”
“Fine,” said Bade. “Get your colonel on this line.” When the colonel appeared, Bade said, “Ground Forces Supply has its steam trucks out of service for lack of water. Get in touch with their H.Q., find out the location of the trucks, and get out there with the water. Find out where they can replenish in the future. Take care of this as fast as you can.”
The colonel worked his mouth in a way that suggested a weak valve struggling to hold back a large quantity of compressed air. Bade looked at him hard. The colonel’s mouth blew open, and “Yes, sir!” came out. The colonel looked startled.
Bade immediately switched back to Supply and said, “Ground Forces Maintenance is going to help you water your trucks. Why didn’t you get in touch with them yourselves? It’s the obvious thing.”
“Sir, we did, hours ago. They said water supply wasn’t in their department.”
Bade seemed to see the bursting of innumerable bubbles before his eyes. It dawned on him that he was bogged down in petty details while big events rushed on unheeded. He switched back to the colonel briefly and when he switched off the colonel was plainly vibrating with energy from head to toe. Then Bade looked forebodingly at the map and ordered Liaison to get General Rast for him.
This took a long time, which Bade spent trying to anticipate the possible enemy reaction if Supply broke down completely, and a retirement became necessary. By the time Rast appeared on the screen, Bade had thought it over carefully, and could see nothing but trouble ahead. There was a buzz, and Bade looked up to see a fuzzy picture of Rast.
Rast, as far as Bade could judge, had a look of victory and exhilaration. But the communicator’s reception was uncommonly bad, and Rast’s image had a tendency to flicker, fade, and slide up and down. Judging by the trend of the conversation, Bade decided reception must be worse yet at the other end.
Bade said, “Supply is in a mess. You’d better choose some sort of defensible perimeter and halt.”
Rast said, “Thank you. The enemy is in full flight.”
“Listen,” said Bade. “Supply is stopped. We can’t get supplies to you. Supply can’t catch up with you.”
“We’ll pursue them day and night,” said Rast.
“Listen to me,” said Bade. “Break off the pursuit! We can’t get
supplies to you!”
Rast’s form slowly dimmed and expanded till it filled the screen, then burst, and reappeared as a brilliant image the size of a man’s thumb. His voice cut off, then came through as a crackle.
“Siss kissis sissis,” said the image, expanding again, “hisss siss kississ sissikississ.” This noise was accompanied by earnest gestures on the part of Rast, and a very determined facial expression. The image grew huge and dim, and burst, then started over again.
Bade spat out a word he had promised himself never to say again under any circumstances whatever. Then he sat helpless while the image, large and clear, leaned forward earnestly and pounded one huge fist into the other.
“Hiss! Siss! Fississ!”
“Listen,” said Bade, “I can’t make out a word you’re saying.” He leaned forward. “WE CAN’T GET SUPPLIES TO YOU!”
The image burst and started over, bright and small.
Bade sucked in a deep breath. He grabbed the Communications microphone. “Listen,” he snapped, “I’ve got General Rast on the screen here and I can’t hear anything but a crackle. The image constantly expands and contracts.”
“I know, sir,” said a gray-smocked technician with a despairing look. “I can see the monitor screen from here. It’s the best we can do, sir.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Bade could see Rast’s image growing huge and dim. “Hiss! Siss!” said Rast earnestly.
“What causes this?” roared Bade.
“Sir, all we can guess is some terrific electrical discharge between here and General Rast’s position. What such a discharge might be, I can’t imagine.”
Bade scowled, and looked at a thumb-sized Rast. Bade opened his mouth to roar out that there was no way to get supplies through. Rast’s image suddenly vibrated like a twanged string, then stopped expanding.
Rast’s voice came through clearly, “Will you repeat that, sir?”
“WE CAN’T SUPPLY YOU,” said Bade. “Halt your advance. Pick a good spot and HALT!”
Rast’s image was expanding again. “Siss hiss,” he said, and saluted. His image vanished.
Bade immediately snapped on the Communications microphone. “Do you have anyone down there who can read lips?” he demanded.
“Read lips? Sir, I—” The technician squinted suddenly, and swung off the screen. He was back in a moment, his face clear and hopeful. “Sir, we’ve got a man in the section that’s a fanatic on communications methods. The other men think he can read lips, and I’ve sent for him.”
“Good,” said Bade. “Set him to work on the record of that conversation with General Rast. Another thing—is there any way you can get a message though to Rast?”
The technician looked doubtful. “Well, sir . . . I don’t know—” His face cleared slightly. “We can try, sir.”
“Good,” said Bade. “Send ‘Supply situation bad. Strongly suggest you halt your advance and consolidate position.’” Bade’s glance fell on the latest plot from the map room. Glumly he asked himself how Rast or anyone else could hope to consolidate the balloon-like situation that was coming about.
“Sir,” asked the technician, “is that all?”
“Yes,” said Bade, “and let me know when you get through to Rast.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bade switched off, and turned to ask Runckel for the exact time Landing Force 3 would be down. Bade hesitated, then squinted hard at Runckel.
Runckel’s face had an unusually bright, animated look. He was glancing rapidly through a sheaf of reports, quickly scribbling comments on them, and tossing them to an excited-looking clerk, who rushed off to slap them on the desks of various exhilarated officers and clerks. These men eagerly transmitted them to their various sections. This procedure was normal, but the faces of the men all looked too excited. Their movements were jerky and fast.
Bade became aware of the sensation of watching a scene in a lunatic asylum.
The excited-looking clerk rushed to Runckel’s desk to snatch up a sheaf of reports, and Bade snapped, “Bring those here.”
The clerk jumped, rushed to Bade’s desk, halted with a jerky bounce and saluted snappily. He flopped the papers on the desk, whirled around and raced off toward the desks of the officers who usually got the reports Bade was now holding. The clerk stopped suddenly, looked at his empty hands, spun around, stared at Runckel’s desk, then at Bade’s. A look of enlightenment passed across his face. “Oh,” he said, with a foolish grin. He teetered back and forth on his heels, then rushed over to look at the latest plot from the map room.
Bade set his jaw and glanced at the reports Runckel had marked.
The top two or three reports were simple routine and had merely been initialed. The next report, however, was headed: “Testing Lab. Report on Cause of Vehicle Failure; Recommendations.”
Bade quickly glanced over several sheet of technical diagrams and figures, and turned to the summary. He read:
“In short, the breakdown of normal function, and the resultant slow violent pulsing action of the motor, is caused by the abnormally low conductivity of Surface Conduction Layer S-3. The pulser current, which would normally flow across this layer is blocked, and instead builds up on projection L-26. Eventually a sufficient charge accumulates, and arcs across air gap B. This throws a shock current through the exciter such as is normally experienced only during violent acceleration. The result is that the vehicle shoots ahead from a standing start, then rolls to a stop while the current again slowly accumulates. The root cause of this malfunction is the fantastically low moisture content of the atmosphere on this planet. It is this that causes the loss of conductivity across Layer S-3.
“Recommended measures to overcome this malfunction include:
a) Artificial humidification of the air entering the motor, by means of sprayer and fan.
b) Sealing of the motor unit.
c) Coating of surface condition layer S-3 with a top-sealed permanent conducting film.
“A) or b) probably can be carried out as soon as the requisite devices and materials are obtainable. This, however, may involve a considerable delay. C), on the other hand, will require a good deal of initial testing and experimentation, but may then be carried into effect very quickly, as the requisite tools and materials are already at hand. We will immediately carry out the initial measures for whichever plan you deem preferable.”
Bade looked the report over again carefully, then glanced at Runckel’s scrawled comment:
“Good work! Carry this out immediately! S.R.”
Bade glared. Carry what out immediately?
Bade glanced angrily at Runckel, then sat up in alarm. Runckel’s hands clenched the side of his desk. Runckel’s back was straight as a rod. His chest was inflated to huge dimensions, and he was slowly drawing in yet more air. His face bore a fixated, inward-turned look that might indicate either horror or ecstasy.
Bade shoved his chair back and glanced around for help.
His glance stopped at the map screen, where the huge overblown blot in the center of the continent had sprouted a long narrow pencil reaching out toward the west.
There was a quick low gonging sound, and the semicircular rim atop the Communications microphone lit up in red. Bade snapped the microphone on and a scared-looking technician said, “Sir, we’ve worked out what General Rast said.”
“What?” Bade demanded.
At Bade’s side, there was a harsh scraping noise. Bade whipped around.
Runckel lurched to his feet, his face tense, his eyes shut, his mouth half open and his hands clenched.
Runckel twisted. There was a gagging sound, then a harsh roar:
Ka
Ka
Ka
KACHOOOOO!!
Bade sat down in a hurry and grabbed the microphone marked, “Medical Corps.”
A crowd of young doctors and attendants swarmed around Runckel with pulse-beat snoopers, blood pressure gauges, little lights on long rubber tubes, and bottles and jars which they f
illed with fluid sucked out of the suffering Runckel with long hollow needles. They whacked Runckel, pinched him, and thumped him, then jumped for cover as he let out another blast.
“Sir,” said a young doctor wearing a “Medical-Officer-On-Duty” badge, “I’m afraid I shall have to quarantine this room and all its occupants. That includes you, sir.” He said this in a gentle but firm voice.
Bade glanced at the doorway. A continuous stream of clerks, officers, and messengers moved in and out on necessary business. Some of these officers, Bade noticed, were speaking in low angry tones to idiotically smiling members of the staff. As one of the angry officers slapped a sheaf of papers on a desk, the owner of the desk came slowly to his feet. His chest inflated to gigantic proportions, he let out a terrific blast, reeled back against a wall, and let out another.
The young medical officer spun around excitedly. “Epidemic!” he yelled. “Seal that door! Back, all of you!” His face had a faint glow as he turned to Bade. “We’ll have this under control in no time, sir.” He came up and plastered a red and yellow sticker over the joint where door and wall came together. He faced the room. “Everyone here is quarantined. It’s death to break that seal.”
From Bade’s desk came an insistent ringing, and the small voice of the communications technician pleaded, “Sir . . . please, sir . . . this is important!” On the map across the room the bloated red space now had two sizable dents driven into it, such as might be expected if the enemy were opening a counteroffensive. The thin pencil line reaching toward the west was wobbling uncertainly at its far end.
Bade became aware of a fuzzy quality in his own thinking, and struggled to fix his mind on the scene around him.
The young doctor and his assistants hustled Runckel toward the door. As Bade stared, the doctor and assistants went out the door without breaking the quarantine seal. The sticker was plastered over the joint on the hinge side of the door. The seal bent as the door opened, then straightened out unhurt as the door shut.