Man of Many Minds/Chapter 24

Chapter 24
Grand Fleet had been rapidly assembling in the region near Simonides, just outside visual range, and away from the passenger and freight lanes. Mobilization was now complete.

Admiral Newton and Senior Lieutenant Hanlon had been invited to ride the Sirius, High Admiral Ferguson's flagship, and were glad to avail themselves of that privilege. They wore uniforms conforming to their rank, but were disguised so that any chance acquaintances could not recognize them, although there were no other Terrans aboard.

Orders were given, and in strict formation the fleet blasted for Algon. First went the great screen of scouts, fanning out in all directions from a common center, the outer fringes at higher speed until a great bowl-like formation was secured. Then all the scouts standardized their speed. When they reached Algon they would completely englobe the planet just beyond detection range.

Next came the light cruisers, in the same formation, but when they englobed at Algon they would go inside the globe of scouts, nearer the planet's surface. Then the heavy cruisers and battleships would descend in three mass formations, one directly over each of the three known shipyards.

“If any of the ships being built there are in shape to attack—if they have weapons installed and crews to use them,” High Admiral Ferguson's orders had been very explicit, “you'll have to burn them down. Otherwise we want those ships untouched.”

George Hanlon was thrilled with the excitement of what was coming, yet knew a touch of fear. He had never been under fire, and knew only from hearsay just what it meant to be in a ship that might be destroyed any instant without the least chance of anyone escaping. In space warfare, there usually just were no survivors. You won and lived—or you lost and were blasted out of existence.

But it wouldn't be long now—the scouts were already establishing their globe just outside of detection range. “No signs of being discovered yet,” they reported.

Then the light cruisers began slipping through the screen of scouts to take their positions. Suddenly, a number of great beams of energy stabbed up toward them from below, and the screens of the cruisers flared in brilliant confiscations of flame as those mighty rays struck them.

“Don't you cruisers and scouts take foolish chances!” High Admiral Ferguson's voice rasped into the mike. “If those beams are too hot, get back fast! Heavy cruisers and battleships, down!”

Instantly Hanlon could feel the surge of acceleration as the great ship he was riding plummeted planetward. In the plate he and his father were scanning, he could see the dots of blue light that identified the nearest scouts, and a moment later the greens of the light cruisers.

Then those dots fled behind his range of vision as the heavies flashed past them.

The plate Hanlon was using was of limited vision, so he could not see the battle as a whole, as High Admiral Ferguson could in his wide-coverage screens. Only what was going on directly below and close to either side was visible to Hanlon. Yet he could see several of those great, stabbing beams reaching out toward the fleet.

A change in color at one edge of his plate caught his eye, and he saw the ship nearest on his right begin to glow as a heavy beam from below worked on its screens, burrowing its way in and in, trying to blast the ship out of existence.

Great streams of radiance struck and ricocheted from its screens, which were swiftly mounting through the spectrum as more and more power was thrown against them by the enemy below.

The air in the Sirius began to grow hotter, and his father answered his inquiring look, “They're attacking us, too, and that's heating us up. Hope our screens hold,” he grinned grimly.

“You said it.” A shiver of fear gripped the young man, and he could feel himself trembling. His father threw a comforting arm across his shoulders. “First battles are always toughest,” he said evenly, and Hanlon calmed instantly.

He turned his attention to the screen again. That neighboring ship was struggling desperately to escape, knowing she could not stand much more.

“What's the matter with that pilot?” Hanlon yelled. “Why don't he flip her over and beat it?”

“Seems to be held by something,” his father's anxious voice was tense. “Have those others got some sort of tractor beam?”

“Tractors?” Hanlon looked up in surprise. “I've read about them, but thought they were impossible.”

“Impossible to us because we haven't got 'em yet,” Newton said absently. “They are theoretically possible.”

Every beam from every Corps ship was piercing downward. Suddenly other ships were appearing, and the young man realized that the light cruisers were coming down to add their might to that of the battleships and heavies.

Four of the light cruisers maneuvered swiftly below the battleship next to the Sirius, one below the other, and in the instant of their alignment the big ship broke free, while the others flashed away from that restricting, holding tractor, or whatever it was.

It seemed like hours that Hanlon's eyes strained, trying to see what was going on. They had slowed, his spaceman's sense told him, and now he could see they were within the atmosphere, not too high above the ground. Now he could make out huge, squat mechanisms from which those deadly rays were pouring.

The Guddus, with their lack of knowledge of things mechanical, had not reported these to Hanlon, else he could have warned Admiral Ferguson about them, and the attack might possibly have been handled differently.

Suddenly a speaker blared, “Sector Two is in our hands. No total losses. A number of the enemy scouts got away—they're far faster than anything we've got.”

A yell rose from every throat there in the control room.

Sector Two, Hanlon knew, was the spaceyard where the scouts and light cruisers were being built. “They probably hadn't armed that field as much as these others,” he said to his father.

Newton nodded, then the two walked over to the High Admiral's station and glanced into his larger bank of plates.

Now Hanlon could see clearly, and at first glance knew that none of the new enemy ships below them were fighting—only those ground batteries which encircled the shipyard. He could see that most of these were now out of action, destroyed by the Federation ships. The others were under terrific bombardment, not only from the ships' beams, but from their bombs and guided missiles as well.

From the looks of the destroyed batteries, Hanlon guessed the explosive bombs had been followed by thermite to complete their destruction.

“We lost many?” Newton asked.

“No totals,” Ferguson's voice was gleeful, “except one light cruiser. We must have caught them napping. If they can't put up any more forces, it'll all be over in a couple of minutes.”

A couple of minutes! Hanlon's thought was a gasp. He glanced at his chronom, and was amazed. He had been sure this battle had lasted for hours—but it was less than ten minutes. It didn't seem possible … but he quickly remembered what he had learned in school, and knowing something of those terrific powers unleashed there, the wonder was now that it had lasted that long.

A speaker near them blared. “Admiral Houghton reporting. Sector Three taken. Two of our cruisers blasted, and one battleship crippled. One enemy battleship was fighting us, and had to be destroyed. They've really got something, sir, that we'll want to study and get for ourselves.”

Another yell of triumph came from the Corpsmen, and Hanlon felt a thrill of pride in the Service of which he was a part.

Then a moment later Admiral Ferguson called into his mike, “Cease fire, but stand by on careful watch. Orion and Athenia, send your specialists down in gigs. I'll meet you there.”

The landing successfully completed without further activity from the enemy, Ferguson, a number of designated officer-specialists, Newton and Hanlon, some technicians, and a company of marines in full armor, disembarked and marched to the safest part of the ruined, still-burning spaceyard.

Careful examination of the ships there was ordered. The officer-technies, who swarmed aboard the enemy ships, soon began reporting one after another, that none of these partially-built vessels seemed damaged beyond repair.

“Thank heavens they built what few ground-batteries they had well outside the field,” Ferguson said to Newton and Hanlon. “We'll get crews in here at once, and complete these ships.”

George Hanlon, after his first quick looks about at the damage done, had been sending his mind out and out, trying to get into telepathic communication with any of the natives, but had not had any success. Had they all been killed? Those here at the shipyard, probably yes, he had to admit sadly. The terrific heat would have burned them. But what about the others? Why couldn't he contact them?

“Excuse me, sir,” he addressed the High Admiral. “What about the mines and factories?”

“All under control without any trouble, outside of a few individual casualties. Light cruisers and scouts took care of those while the main battle was on.”

“I'd like a small cruiser to take me to the mine where I worked,” he said, and one was ordered to come down and place itself on special assignment at his disposal.

“Want to come with me, Dad?” he asked.

The two admirals exchanged glances, and Ferguson nodded. “Go ahead if you want to. We won't need you here for now.”

In the airlock of the cruiser Hanlon removed the disguising makeup, and it was as his Algonian-known self, dressed in civvies he had brought for that purpose, that he descended at the familiar little spaceport.

His father was intensely interested in that fantastic, seemingly-alive jungle through which they walked to the mine clearing. “I've never seen anything like this,” he commented in amazement. “Are these trees and bushes conscious, too?”

“Very slightly,” his son told him. “The Guddus call them their ‘little cousins,’ and I believe can communicate to some extent, but I never could.”

As they broke from the jungle's fringe, they saw a double-squad of marines on guard. The two were allowed through the lines, and entered the office. Behind his desk, his face dead white from suspense, sat Peter Philander, and about the room sprawled the engineers, guards and other workers.

“Hi, Mr. Philander!” Hanlon called cheerfully, and at sound of that remembered voice, the superintendent's head, as well as those of all the others, snapped up.

“You!” There was incredulity in the super's voice and manner.

“Yep, it's me,” Hanlon grinned. “I'm glad nothing happened to any of you.”

“Hmmpff!” Philander snorted defeatedly. “What's the difference between being killed cleanly in a fight, as against a lifetime in prison, or a firing squad?”

“You'll get neither one,” Hanlon said quietly, remembering the power he, as a Secret Service operative, carried. “There'll be a trial, of course, but I know that you, at least, are all okay.”

“He's boss, ain't he?” one of the guards growled truculently. “Why should he get off free iffen th' rest of us don't?”

“None of you will be harmed because of your part in the plot His Highness Gorth Bohr was scheming. That is broken, and we know you were all just his tools. All any of you will be tried for are your actions as regards the Greenies. If brutality against them is proven, you'll be properly punished for that alone.”

He turned to Philander. “Are the natives all right?”

The man looked up hopelessly, unable to believe Hanlon's statement about himself. “How do I know?” his voice was dispirited. “When the Corps captured us, they dragged us from wherever we were working, and as far as I know left the Greenies untended. They've probably all run back to the woods.”

Hanlon looked at his father. “I'm going out to look. I have a feeling …” and he walked out without saying more. Nor was he greatly surprised to see the natives all sitting or standing quietly in their compounds, some feeding from the fertilizer Hanlon was glad to see was still being fed them, others merely resting, waiting.

The gates, of course, were unlocked and wide open, so Hanlon walked quickly back to the hut his crew occupied and stepped inside the doorway. While waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimness he saw a figure launching itself at him. But as he quickly stepped back outside, in case it was an attack, he saw that it was Geck.

“You came back, you came back!” the native was babbling telepathically in an excess of joy. “When the new humans came and took the old humans prisoners, me said it was your work. Me knew you would come. Me tell other Guddu to wait for you here.”

“What about those near the places where the ships were being built?” Hanlon's mind asked anxiously. “I tried to get into contact with them but couldn't.”

“Many of they were killed, yet most ran to forests when great fires that destroy were started,” was the sad response.

Hanlon was silent a moment, then telepathed again. “There is no need for you all to stay here any longer. Tell all your people to go back to their forests, for they are all free.”

Geck turned to the other natives who were crowding close, and Hanlon could see him talking swiftly with that peculiar-looking little triangular-shaped mouth. Soon his mind was suffused with a tremendous wave of joy and ecstasy, and they began dashing out. Hanlon could see them talking to the natives in all the huts, and in moments all the natives except Geck were streaming happily toward the nearby forests.

Hanlon turned to Geck. “I'd like to have you stay with me or where I can reach you for a while. As soon as we can get straightened around, we'll make arrangements to do anything we can for you.”

“Me stay with friend An-yon,” Geck said simply, and Hanlon was glad and proud of that friendship with this strange alien.

They walked back to the mine office, and there Hanlon told his father about what he had done with the natives.

Admiral Newton was intensely interested, and frankly studied the strange, weird Geck. It was his first sight of these “vegetable” creatures. “Animated trees,” Hanlon had first called them, although now they were so familiar to him, and he knew them so well that he thought of them, naturally and without question, as “people.”

The young Secret Serviceman explained to the elder about the frequency-transformer he had built—but dismantled before leaving Algon. He suggested that specialists be sent here to see what could be done about teaching the natives any of the things they might want to know.

“But don't let them try to force the Guddus into a mechanical civilization,” he pleaded. “Let 'em grow in their own way, and make what progress they can in whatever way comes natural to them.”

“Of course,” his father agreed quickly. “That's the way we always work with such primitives. We tell them and show them what we have, but only give them what they specifically ask for, whether we think it is what they ‘ought to have’ or not. Don't worry, your friends will be in good hands. But,” there was a peculiar light in his eyes, “I sure would like to watch an autopsy on one of them. A vegetable brain …”

“Yes, it would be interesting,” Hanlon admitted, “but I'm glad you treat them that way.” He turned back to Geck and explained, telepathically, as best he could.

“You stay here with we,” the Guddu asked hopefully.

“I'm sorry, but I have other work to do,” and then, as he saw how the other lost heart. Hanlon hastened to add, “I have to go help other enslaved peoples on other worlds.”

“Then us not try to keep you. But us hope you come to see we many time.”

“I'll do that, Geck my friend, every chance I get.”