The Project Gutenberg eBook ofNeedlerThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: NeedlerAuthor: Randall GarrettIllustrator: Ed EmshwillerRelease date: April 29, 2023 [eBook #70668]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Street & Smith Publications, Inc, 1957Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEEDLER ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: NeedlerAuthor: Randall GarrettIllustrator: Ed EmshwillerRelease date: April 29, 2023 [eBook #70668]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Street & Smith Publications, Inc, 1957Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: Needler
Author: Randall GarrettIllustrator: Ed Emshwiller
Author: Randall Garrett
Illustrator: Ed Emshwiller
Release date: April 29, 2023 [eBook #70668]
Language: English
Original publication: United States: Street & Smith Publications, Inc, 1957
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEEDLER ***
NEEDLERBY RANDALL GARRETTIllustrated by Emsh"The principal difficulty in the case ... lay in the fact of there being too much evidence. What was vital was over-laid and hidden by what was irrelevant."--Sherlock Holmes[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromAstounding Science Fiction June 1957.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
BY RANDALL GARRETT
Illustrated by Emsh
"The principal difficulty in the case ... lay in the fact of there being too much evidence. What was vital was over-laid and hidden by what was irrelevant."--Sherlock Holmes
"The principal difficulty in the case ... lay in the fact of there being too much evidence. What was vital was over-laid and hidden by what was irrelevant."--Sherlock Holmes
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromAstounding Science Fiction June 1957.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
They just didn't give a damn. The first load of survivors brought back after the Battle of Leymon's Star had been short-circuited somewhere, and they didn't give two hoots whether they lived or died.
The same thing happened to the crew of the GSSBedevinafter the skirmish in the Great Rift. TheBedevinwas found drifting along, out of control, after having demolished an enemy vessel with a blast of the newaJguns.
It was a case of "the operation was a success, but the doctor died." Or might as well have.
The crewmen of the fighting ships were in a state of semicatatonia.
The alien ships were burned and blasted out of space, with the exception of those which turned tail and ran. The survivors in the human ships were picked up and taken to Kandoris VI, the Galactic Main Base of the Interstellar Fleet.
Fleet Commander Allerdyce hospitalized the men and turned the problem over to the Civilian Research Corps. General Director Eckisster frowned over the whole mess, fired out assignments right and left, and dumped the bulk of the responsibility into the lap of Roysland Dwyn, chief of the Special Weapons Group.
Dwyn immediately asked for a specimen from the Fleet Hospital Psychiatric Ward.
Bilford, the chief psychometrist, brought one of the crew members from theBedevininto the office of the head of Special Weapons four days after the survivors had been picked up.
Roysland Dwyn glanced up from the work at his desk when Bilford entered. Behind the huge plastic block of the desk, he looked no larger than the average man. It was only when he stood that it became apparent that Roysland Dwyn was two sizes larger than the average man, regardless of where you measured.
Bilford walked on into the office. "You wanted to see Captain Gisser, Roysland?"
Roysland nodded his massive head. "Bring him in; I want to get the whole picture on this business."
Bilford nodded and turned back toward the door. His eyes looked sad and pitying, and he ran a lean, nervous hand through his bushy gray hair as he called out: "All right, Captain Gisser—come in here."
As Captain Gisser strolled in from the outer office, Roysland watched him carefully.
Gisser was tall and graceful, in the near-perfect physical trim of a fighting man. He moved with military precision, but without the stiff rigidity of formal marching. He took one step through the door—and stopped.
Roysland narrowed his gray eyes and looked at the captain's face. The expression on it was definitely not the sleepy, glazed look of the hypnotic catatonic. After a moment, Roysland decided it could be described as a sort of apathetic introspection.
"How long will he stand like that?" he asked Bilford.
Bilford spread his hands. "Until someone tells him to move or he collapses from lack of food or sheer fatigue."
"Have him sit down over there." Roysland pointed. "No use making the poor guy stand up."
"Go over to that chair and sit down," Bilford told the captain. Gisser did as he was told.
Bilford pulled up another chair and sat down. "Why'd you want to see him?" he asked. "I mean, do you have anything in mind?"
Roysland shook his head. "Nothing specific; I'm just trying to see every angle of this. The Enlissa have a new weapon; we've got to do something to counteract it. So far, we don't know anything about it except that it bollixes up the brain—and that isn't very useful. It's like trying to deduce the existence of a pistol from the holes in the target."
"Worse," Bilford said gloomily; "we don't even have a hole to analyze."
"Yes, we do. A psychic hole." Roysland gestured toward the silent captain. "Are they all like that?"
"Essentially, yes," Bilford said.
"Can he hear what I'm saying? I mean, can he understand me?"
"That's a hard question to answer. I should say that the understanding was of a very low level. Here, I'll show you what I mean." He turned and looked directly at the seated spaceman.
"Captain Gisser, how old are you?" he asked in a firm, clear voice.
There was no answer.
"Gisser, when were you born?"
Still no answer.
"Gisser,tell uswhen you were born."
"Twelve, Eight, Seven sixty-four," Gisser said promptly.
Bilford looked back at Roysland. "He won't do anything on his own; there's absolutely no conscious volition. He has to be told what to do.
"Just asking him a question isn't enough; you have to insist on the answer. That's what I meant by saying that his understanding is on a very low level. He can't even deduce the presence of an unspoken command."
Roysland frowned and started to say something, but he was interrupted by a flicker of light on his desk panel.
He looked at Bilford. "The boss," he said dryly. Then he pressed a stud.
Light flickered in the air and coalesced into the seated figure of a portly, smiling, middle-aged man. The image wavered a little, then settled into an illusion of material solidity.
General Director Eckisster smiled and said: "Are we getting anywhere, gentlemen?"
"We're just getting started," Roysland said.
Eckisster nodded. "I see." His eyes lit on the captain, who was still sitting in the same position he had taken when he was ordered into the chair. "Is this one of theBedevin's men?"
It was Bilford who answered. "Yes, sir. Captain Gisser, Prime Officer."
"And you haven't found out anything about him yet? Don't you know what's wrong with these men?" Eckisster's voice was bland on the surface, but there was a biting hardness underneath.
"We know what's wrong with them, sir," Bilford said stiffly; "we just don't know what caused it."
"According to the electroencephaloscope readings, the electrical activity of the prefrontal lobes is exhibiting a loop-feedback pattern. It's going around in circles without getting anywhere. As far as the nerve impulses are concerned, these men have been effectively lobotomized—almost completely so."
"I see." Eckisster looked at the captain again. "Captain, stand up." The captain stood. "Sit down." The officer sat. Eckisster rubbed a plump finger over his chin. "That's according to the report, at least. Would he kill himself if I asked him to?"
"Not if youaskedhim to," Bilford said coldly. "He might if youtoldhim to. Do you want me to try it?"
"Don't be ridiculous!" the general director snapped. He looked at Roysland, who had been sitting quietly, waiting for Eckisster to finish. "Roysland, do you have any idea of the nature of this weapon?"
"None, sir," Roysland said quietly. "Neither I nor the psychologists have any idea what could do this to the human brain."
"Oh, no?" Eckisster's plump face smiled. "Haven't I heard something about microwaves at high intensity?"
Roysland nodded. "Sure. I know what you mean. But I was talking about doing it over a range of seven hundred million miles.
"We know that it can be done, but we don't know how the enemy did it. Look at it this way: If we'd found every one of these men with his skull bashed in, we could say that it had been done with a club. But that still wouldn't explain how it was done from better than a light-hour away."
"Besides," Bilford chipped in, "high intensity microwaves don't have that effect. They affect the brain, sure—but not that way."
Eckisster nodded and folded his hands placidly. "I understand. Well, gentlemen, I—" He stopped suddenly and looked to one side, out of the range of his pickup. A voice said: "This facsimile just came in on the ultrabeam, sir."
A hand materialized out of nowhere, holding a fac sheet; Eckisster took it, unfolded it, and read it. His eyes opened a trifle wider, and he looked up at Roysland.
"Roysland, they've used it again. TheKilliverwas picked up this side of the Noir Nebula, near Poulderr. They found her because of the automatic signals. Every man aboard was just like Captain Whatsisname, there. They're bringing the ship here, to Kandoris." He paused and looked at both men in turn. "If this keeps up," he said, "they'll have us whipped. It's your job to keep them from doing that. Now, you've got several trails to follow. Follow them, and get some answers; that's all."
His hand touched the arm rest of his chair, and abruptly the image dissolved into transparent air.
Bilford looked at Roysland. "I don't like the way he keeps needling people," he said. "It gets under my skin."
Roysland stood up. "He thinks that's the best way to get things done. Maybe it is; I really don't know. I do agree with him in one respect: wehaveto do something—what, I don't know, but something.
"We've been fighting the Enlissa for eighteen years. Up until last year, when we invented theaJgun, there hadn't been an improvement on either side; they were winning because they had more ships.
"Then we get theaJgun functioning, and use it against them; and when we do, it turns out that they have an even better weapon. I know what they mean when they say war is hell."
He stopped and looked at the captain. "Well, let's get on with it; I want to ask him a few questions."
Eighteen years of fighting hadn't seriously damaged either side, insofar as actual loss of life was concerned. Men in ships had been killed, of course, but no civilian had yet lost his life as a direct result of the Enlissa-Human war. The Enlissa hadn't gotten in close enough to occupied planets—yet.
But, until a year ago, it had seemed inevitable that they would. The screen of ships that ranged around the periphery of the human-inhabited section of the galaxy was getting thinner all the time. The Enlissa had more ships, and, rather than make a direct attack, they seemed to prefer to punch at the screen, weakening it steadily.
But the Enlissa had underestimated human ingenuity. Both sides had been relying on the ultralight torpedoes to knock each other out of the sky, and humanity had realized that they had to have something better. So they had come up with theaJprojector. If matter can be projected through the no-space of ultralight velocities, why not energy?
The result was as devastating a heat beam as any dreamer could logically expect; all the energy of a nuclear reaction focused along a narrow locus of no-space toward the enemy ship. Even a shielded hull gives under bombardment like that.
It looked as though the war was won. That is, it did until ships came back with mindless crews.
TheKilliverwas sitting in its launching cradle at the far side of the ten-mile-square Grand Port of Kandoris. Roysland didn't bother to take the tubeway; he flashed his credentials and commandeered a surface jeep. Bilford had already taken charge of the crew, but Roysland wasn't worried aboutthem; he wanted a look at the ship.
TheKilliverwas swarming with inspectors and special government investigators. Roysland jumped out of the jeep as it slowed near the giant sphere of the ship, and strode toward the ring of guards that surrounded the globe.
One of the guards looked up at Roysland's huge frame and said: "May I see your pass, sir?"
Roysland pulled out his pass and handed it to the guard.
The guard barely glanced at it; then he shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir; this is a general pass. You'll have to get one of the special passes for this ship. The Inspection Division has—"
"Where the devil do I get a pass?" Roysland snapped.
"You'll have to apply at Inspection," the guard said. "In person," he added.
Roysland shook his hand. "I'm not going twelve miles back to Administration. Who's in charge here?"
"Inspector Gowlan, sir."
"Call him; tell him Roysland Dwyn wants to see him."
The guard hesitated for a moment, then spoke softly into the communicator on his wrist. The speaker in his ear buzzed a reply. "He'll be right out," said the guard.
A moment later, a dark-haired, average-sized man in a chief inspector's uniform fell through the drop chute from the ship and crossed the open space toward Roysland. "Roysland Dwyn?" he said, holding out his hand. "You're Special Weapons, aren't you? I'm Gowlan."
Roysland nodded and gripped the proffered hand in his own great paw. "Glad to know you. I want to get on that ship."
The inspector shook his head. "'Fraid not ... not without a special pass. We've got to make damage estimates."
"That ship is equipped withaJprojectors," Roysland said. "My gang designed and built them from the ground up; I know more about them than you do. I want to see them—and the rest of the ship. I haven't got time to go gallivanting all over this base getting signatures on a blasted pass."
The inspector started to say something, but Roysland cut him off. "You can check with Eckisster, if you want; but hurry it up."
Gowlan looked up into Roysland's eyes, hesitated, then spoke into his wrist phone.
Less than two minutes later, Roysland was inside the ship.
TheKilliverwas in almost perfect shape. TheaJguns appeared to be in perfect operating condition, and the meters showed that three of them had tracked and fired at something that had passed the upper starboard quadrant of the vessel.
Roysland checked the recordings, then looked up at Gowlan, who had elected to follow him. "Any sign of the ship they were firing at?"
Gowlan shrugged. "The Space-fleet men didn't find anything. If theKilliverholed it, they would still probably be light-years away from where the ship was found."
"What made them skitter off like that?"
Gowlan looked at him. "I don't get it. What do you mean?"
Roysland waved his hand to indicate their surroundings. The corridors and rooms of the great ship were swarming with inspectors, who were photographing and checking every square centimeter of the ship.
"What happened? Why have we got this ship?" Roysland asked.
Gowlan thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I see what you're getting at. Let's see—
"TheKilliveris cruising in ultradrive. They pick up a blip on the detector; it's an enemy ship. They're too far away to torpedo, but they're well within range of theaJprojectors. That gets us up to the moment of firing." He stopped and his frown deepened. "Wait a second; that doesn't make sense."
Roysland raised an eyebrow. "What doesn't?"
"Well, look here: The gunners would have had to be awake when theaJ'swere fired. All right; that means they tracked the Enlissa ship, then cut in the automatics to fire theaJ's. They must have missed, because the Enlissa used the mindjammeraftertheaJ'swere fired.
"But if that's so, then why didn't the Enlissa ship capture theKilliver?"
It was a good point. Roysland frowned and turned the thing over in his mind. A spaceship is expensive—hellishly expensive; the cost of a fleet of seagoing battleships is nothing in comparison. So you don't waste ships, even the enemy's. The whole object of a space battle is to destroy the enemy crew without destroying the ship. Even a badly-damaged interstellar vessel is worth saving.
TheKilliverwas in excellent condition. If the Enlissa ship were still in good shape after the battle, why hadn't they taken theKilliver?
"The only thing I can figure," Gowlan said, "is that the Enlissa ship fired their mindjammer just after theaJ'swere fired—almost at the same time, you might say." He grinned. "Sure. That's what must have happened."
Roysland nodded. "It looks like the only explanation," he agreed. "That is, except for one thing."
"What's that?" Gowlan wanted to know.
"Why has the same coincidence occurred in three different battles, in widely separated parts of the galaxy?"
Gowlan's face lost its self-satisfied look. "Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah. Why?"
"Kick that around a while," Roysland said, grinning. "If you come up with anything, let me know."
Roysland Dwyn spent the next two days sitting in his office with his feet on his desk, leaning back in a chair that creaked ominously with his weight. The only interruptions were for food and sleep—except when one of his staff called in with new data, which was rare.
He got one call from Milford. The microwave business that the general director suggested had shown some promise of snapping the stricken crews out of their apathy. Some of the men were improving rapidly, and others more slowly; but all of them were showing some positive response to the treatment.
On the afternoon of the second day, he got a call from Eckisster. The old man didn't look particularly jovial. His image solidified with a scowl on it. "What have you got on this microwave business?" he snapped.
Roysland lifted his big boots off the desk and leaned forward leisurely. "Nothing."
"You'd better get something fast," the general director said. "They're attacking shipping now, and they're well within the periphery."
Roysland jerked erect. "What? What happened?"
Eckisster's lower lip curled. "Don't use that tone of voice on me, Roysland. I don't like it. I want you to find out a few things. What's happening? Why do they attack this way and do nothing? What sort of gadget do they have? Is there any defense against it? Can we make it? Can we—"
His voice trailed off. Roysland had stood up and walked around his desk until he was less than a yard from the image of the general director. He knew full well that his own image in the director's office was doing the same thing. And in spite of the fact that Eckisster knew the image was harmless, Roysland's impressive mass quieted him.
When he spoke, Roysland's voice was low. "Now you listen to me, Eckisster. You want me to solve this problem. O.K. I want to figure it out as much as you do, but I can't do a thing without data. I have to know what has happened, and I have to know exactly how it happened. So don't come busting in on me with a lot of vague hints when I'm thinking. I don't have to put up with that sort of stuff; either give me the data on what happened, or go yak at someone else while I figure this out without any help from you."
Eckisster looked up at the bulk of bone and muscle that towered over him. "Don't get excited, Roysland," he said. "I'll forgive your impertinence: it's just that I'm so worried, myself."
"O.K. You're excused, too. Now, what's this about shipping being attacked?"
Eckisster glanced to one side and reached for something outside the pickup field. The end of his arm vanished and reappeared holding a sheaf of papers. "Of course, a copy of this will be sent to your office right away, but I can give you the essentials now.
"Two unarmed cargo vessels left Belixa III a week ago, bound for Niadel V. They were escorted by a light cruiser of theSidnegclass. They were picked up, off course, after they had passed the Niadel sun; nobody on board had even bothered to eat for four days.
"They probably wouldn't have been found at all if they'd been ordinary merchant vessels, but the local government on Niadel V was looking for them; there'd been an epidemic of some sort there, and these ships were on an emergency run with antibiotics of some kind."
Roysland stepped back and sat on the edge of his desk. "Got all three of them?"
"All three of them," said Eckisster emphatically. "Now, I'll send this report over to you immediately. We'll have to get some action. If the Enlissa can get in this close, they may decide to attack Kandoris itself! Your job is Special Weapons. Find a screen of some sort that will protect us from this—whatever it is."
"Call it a mindjammer," Roysland said. "One of the inspectors used that word, and I kind of like it."
"You like it." Eckisster's voice was cutting. "I don't like anything that doesthatto a human brain. Get busy and find some way to beat it."
Roysland started to explain that he liked the word—not the object—but the general director's image was already dissolving. Roysland stepped back behind his desk and dialed a number. A few seconds later, Bilford's image materialized. The nervous little man looked more nervous than ever.
"What is it, Roysland? More trouble? I hope not. I've had Eckisster on my neck all morning."
"I know; I just got him off mine. But I wanted to ask you something. Is there any correlation between the frequencies that help those men and the frequency of the feedback circuit in their prefrontal lobes?"
Bilford frowned in thought. "I don't know; I'd never thought of it from that angle. They don't have any obvious correlation, I can tell you that. I'll check on it, though. I'll run it through the differential analyzer."
Roysland nodded. "Try that. Let me know if you get anything."
He cut Bilford off and dialed another number. The image that appeared this time was wearing the uniform of a fleet commander.
"Commander Allerdyce, do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?"
"Go ahead, Roysland. What is it? I hope you're not going to needle me the way your boss does. I'd have tossed him out of my office, except that you can't grab a solidiphone image. Best I could do was shut him off, which was very unsatisfactory." The commander grinned wryly at the thought.
A big grin spread itself across Roysland's blocky face. "I know how you feel. No, commander, I just wanted to ask a couple of questions, as I said.
"You're familiar with the details of the Enlissa attack on that medical supply convoy?"
The fleet commander nodded.
"Well," Roysland continued, "what would happen if you were in command of the cruiser and you found a trace on the scope that indicated an Enlissa ship?"
"The orders cover that," said the commander. "The cruiser cuts in with theaJguns before the Enlissa ship gets within torpedo range."
"And this always works?"
The commander shrugged. "It always has so far, theaJ'sknock them out of space before they can get close enough to launch screenbuster torpedoes accurately. But this new gadget they've got evidently has as great a range as theaJprojectors."
"Or greater," Roysland added.
"Yeah," said Allerdyce softly, "or greater."
"Is there any other possibility?" Roysland wanted to know.
The commander nodded. "One—if the Enlissa were lucky, that is. If the enemy ship could have approached the convoy by coming in directly from a star, the subetheric radiation from the sun behind them would blank out their own radiation, and they could get in pretty close before they registered on a screen.
"But in order to do that, they'd have to know the convoy's course and lie in wait for it. If they actually did use a star to hide themselves, it was probably pure luck on their part that they happened to be in the right place at the right time."
Roysland nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed in thought. "I wonder—" he said finally. "Would you do me a favor, commander? Would you check and see if that cruiser actually fired towards a sun? That might give us some information."
"I'll check," Allerdyce said. "It'll be on the recorders. I'll let you know what I come up with."
"Fine," said Roysland. "I'll see you later." He cut off, and his image disintegrated.
Roysland looked at the dark, blurred reflection of his face in the black plastic of his desk for a moment, then grinned. "All right, buster," he said to the face in the desk, "you're stuck for a while, anyway. Time to call in some help."
He touched a switch plate on his desk panel and said: "Call a meeting of the Special Weapons Staff at my home at twenty-nine hundred hours."
He touched another plate and said: "As soon as the report from the general director comes in, have it transferred to my home."
And another: "Send all data to date on the enemy's latest weapon to my home. Code itMindjammer."
Then he got up, shut off his desk, and went out. An early meal was on the agenda, it seemed.
Blackpool's Restaurant was, as usual, well populated, but not over-crowded. Roysland managed to find a table in the rear, where he sat down and ordered a tall glass of fruit juice. He liked Blackpool's; its old-fashioned, almost primitive atmosphere was impressive without being phony. The waiters—remote-control humanoids guided by the vast robot brain in the basement—were dressed in the fluffy, bright, fluorescent clothing of a style that had been worn two centuries before, when Blackpool's had been built. The uniforms had never changed.
Roysland consulted the menu, told the waiter what he wanted, and went back to his fruit juice.
"Roysland? Mind if I pull in?"
Roysland looked up at the short, round-faced, smiling man standing by the table. "Not at all Osteban; sit down." Roysland didn't particularly want to talk to him then, but it wouldn't do to offend the Galactic News Service. Roysland waved the man to a seat and asked him if he wanted a drink.
Osteban eyed his host's drink. "What are you drinking? Want to let me taste it?" He took the glass, sipped at it, and made a wry face. "F'revvinsake! Mind if I have something with life in it?"
Roysland said he didn't, and Osteban ordered something more potent. When the waiter brought it, he took a healthy swallow and then said: "Mind if I ask a question?"
"Ask to your heart's content," Roysland said. "You will, anyway. But I don't guarantee any answers."
"Did you ever?" He took another swallow of liquid. "What's in this rumor that the Enlissa have invented a gadget that drives people crazy?"
"I haven't heard any such rumor," Roysland said. It was a perfectly true statement, if a trifle incomplete.
"Did I ask if you'd heard it?" Osteban countered.
"Tell me something, Osteban," Roysland said seriously. "Did you ever use a declarative sentence in your life?"
"What do you mean? Let's quit the kidding, shall we? Didn't you understand my question—or are you playing dumb?" Osteban grinned as he said it, making it totally inoffensive.
Roysland flipped a coin, mentally. It came down tails, and Osteban lost. "I can't speak officially, of course," Roysland said, "I'll just have to be a 'reliable anonymous source.' But I can tell you this: We don't know what the Enlissa may or may not have; but we haven't lost any ships because of any insanity rays, or what have you."
"Is that a fact?" Osteban thought for a moment. "I guess it is or you wouldn't say it, would you?"
They drank in silence for a few moments, then Osteban said: "All right, tell me something else, will you? These newaJprojectors have been on active duty for half a year or so, haven't they? They're supposed to be hot stuff, right? Then why is it that they haven't destroyed any enemy ships? Why is it that all the communiques always say: 'The Enlissa ship was finally destroyed by ultralight torpedoes.'"
Roysland frowned. "I didn't know that was the case. However, I think I can hazard a guess. AnaJprojector requires the installation of a big no-space generator, similar to the one that drives the ship. They're expensive when they get that big, and only a few of the larger battleships have been equipped with them.
"Now, actually, what are the odds that any particular ship will make shooting contact with the enemy? Very small. The probable reason that no enemy ships have been destroyed byaJprojectors is that noaJships have come in contact with the enemy."
"Do you think that's it?" The reporter grinned and took a final sip from his glass, draining it. "Well, I guess I can't get a story out of you, can I? O.K., then; will I see you around?"
"Sure," said Roysland. "Take it easy."
But the reporter had ruined his dinner. What was there about the casualty statistics that was unusual? Was there any more information in that area? He'd have to check and see.
The executive staff of Special Weapons assembled in Roysland Dwyn's study via solidiphone at 2900 that evening. There were five of them at the table. Kiffer, Mardis, Taddibol, and Vanisson were actually thousands of parsecs away, on four widely scattered bases of the fleet.
Roysland Dwyn, himself, was the fifth man.
"I'm going to make this short and sweet," Roysland said. "I don't want much discussion until you've all had a chance to mull over the data in your minds for a while."
He spent fifteen minutes telling them what he'd picked up so far. When he was finished, Vanisson asked: "Have you tried running this through a computer?"
Roysland shook his head. "It can't be done. We don't have enough symbolizable data. Only the human mind can take incomplete data and come up with the right answer; we're going to have to do this ourselves. We'll have to probe into what we have and see if we come up with anything."
"I've got a question," Mardis said. "Why does the enemy only pick onaJships?"
Roysland nodded. "And why do they invariably fireimmediatelyafter theaJprojectors fire?"
Kiffer said: "Could it be some kind of subetheric vibration that does the trick?"
"You're the subelectronics man," Roysland said. "What do you think?"
Kiffer shrugged. "Subetherics are dangerous; near a projector, they can foul up electrical currents, provided the currents aren't too strong. They can knock a man out, or even kill him; but I never heard of any effect like this."
"What would it take to get an effect like this?" Roysland asked. "Figure it from that angle."
Taddibol looked excited. "Could it be that the enemy doesn't even have such a weapon?"
They all looked at him. Roysland was grinning. "Maybe you've got the same hunch I have," Roysland said. "Let's hear it."
"We know: one, it only happens onaJships; two, it happens at the instant of firing. Could it be some sort of backlash from the projectors that's doing it?"
Roysland, still grinning, looked at the subelectronics man. "How about it, Kiffer?"
Kiffer shook his head. "I doubt it. There's a backwash, of course, as there is to any kind of no-space generator. But it's almost indetectable, even with subelectronic instruments. There's certainly not enough to hurt anyone. Besides, the emission would be from the exciter in the gun, and it would hit the men in one direction; that might slow their neural currents up a little for a fraction of a second, but it wouldn't do anything like what we have here, even if it were strong enough."
All the time he had been talking, Mardis had been nodding his head in agreement. When Kiffer finished, Mardis said: "And besides that, we've tested the things, remember? We fired those projectors under every condition we could think of, and we didn't get any feedback lobotomies."
Taddibol nodded. "That's right. We mounted four projectors on the X-69, and melted asteroids for six months before we released the weapon to the fleet."
"Anybody got any more questions?" Roysland asked.
There were none.
"All right, I have some I want you to think over. First: Is this really an enemy weapon? Second: If so, how is it generated and projected ataJships? Third: If it isn't an enemy weapon, what is it? Fourth: Regardless of what it is,whereis it generated? Fifth: If we—"
He didn't finish. The solidiphone signal was blinking. He activated the instrument, and Eckisster coalesced into the room, his chubby face dewy with perspiration.
"Ah!" he said. "I'm glad to find you at home. I'm glad to see you're working on this thing at last. Why didn't you call in your staff two days ago? Maybe they can figure something out, even if you can't; this thing has suddenly become dangerous."
Roysland looked dangerous, so the general director patted the air with a hand. "I've got the stuff for you right here, Roysland, so don't give me any of your lip. In the first place, there was a convoy attack yesterday out near the periphery. It turned out to be one of the biggest battles of the war so far. The enemy lost five ships to fire fromaJprojectors, and four to torpedoes. We lost two ships to torpedo fire and six ships to the ... what did you call it? ... mindjammer.
"Fortunately, we had them out-numbered and were able to recover the crews and ships we'd lost to the mindjammer.
"But it doesn't look good. If they start using that weapon on a big scale, we'll be sunk. If they ever hit a planet with it—Well, you can imagine what it would be like to take care of a city full of morons."
Eckisster paused, squinted his eyes at Roysland, and jabbed at him with a finger. "Now, I've got an idea," he said. "We've got to develop some sort of screen that will take care of the mindjamming effect. You ought to be pretty good at defensive screening by now; until you worked out theaJprojector, Special Weapons has been strictly on the defensive side."
Vanisson said: "Naturally, sir. It's easier to prevent something from getting to you than to figure out a way of getting to the other guy. Arms theory shows—"
Eckisster glowered at the man. "Theory, hogwash! I want a defense against the mindjammer, and I want it yesterday! Get busy!"
Roysland was leaning back in his chair with his arms folded over his chest. When Eckisster had completed his outburst, Roysland said, calmly: "Are you quite through, sir?"
"I am," said the general director. "I doubt if you mudheads can come up with anything before we are all reduced to gibbering idiots, but God knows I've done my best."
"Youarefinished then?" Roysland's voice was still calm. Then, quite suddenly, it became savage. "Then leave us alone, so we can think! Good-by!" He snapped off his receiver switch, and Eckisster's image vanished before the director had a chance to say anything.
Roysland smiled gently. "And now, gentlemen, let's get down to work."
Two days later, the X-69—the fast, experimental ship of Special Weapons—dropped down to the Grand Port of Kandoris. A score of heavy trucks, loaded with equipment, waited for the cargo ports to open; and big, lumbering sections of construction framework were being moved in toward it.
The man who floated down the drop chute from the equatorial air lock was Kiffer Samm. A ground taxi was waiting for him, and it started to move even before Kiffer closed the door.
Within minutes, he was in Roysland Dwyn's office. He pulled up a chair, sat down, and said: "Well, I'm here."
"An astute observation," said Roysland. "Who knows to what depths of scientific thought you may reach with such cosmos-shaking revelations as that?"
"A mere nothing," said Kiffer; "I might add that the X-69 is here, too. How long will it take to get the stuff mounted on her?"
"A couple of hours. I made sure that Allerdyce would have the necessary equipment ready when you landed. We'll take off as soon as she's loaded."
Kiffer frowned at Roysland, then looked down at his fingernails. "You don't need to go along."
"Why not?"
Kiffer kept looking at his nails for a full five seconds. Then he looked up and said: "Look, Roysland, suppose what you suspectistrue. Suppose that it isn't an enemy weapon, but a backfire from theaJguns. If so, then we'll be mindjammed when we test out the fleet's weapons. And we can't afford to have you in that condition."
"I know it," said Roysland, "but there's no other way I can get the data. Besides, Bilford is having some success with using microwaves on the patients; there's reason to believe that the condition is temporary."
Kiffer shrugged and spread his hands. "O.K.; if that's your orders—" He let his voice trail off. Then: "But I still don't like it. Look at it from my viewpoint; if I'm knocked out, I can depend on you to figure out a way to bring me out of it. But if you're out, too, what's to become of me?"
Roysland laughed. "That's the best reason you could have given. Thanks. But I'm still going."
It took just a little more than two hours for the Space-fleet ordnance crews to replace theaJprojectors on the X-69. Roysland's theory was simple. Although theaJguns might be responsible for the mindjamming effect, it was obvious that they didn't cause it every time. It was possible that there were slight differences in the backwash of radiation—slight differences caused by variations in the projectors themselves. The weapons of theBedevinand theKilliverwent into the turrets of the X-69; if there were any basis for the theory, at least two of those guns would be responsible for the mindjamming effect.
The X-69 left Kandoris VI at 0500 hours, aimed herself for the vast void of the Lesser Rift, and cut in her no-space generators. The drive slammed her abruptly up past the velocity of light and into multiples thereof.
Roysland had a cabin to himself near the upper deck at the nose of the ship, just beneath the control bridge. With Kiffer's aid, he set up recording instruments at various points throughout the ship, started them, and promptly forgot them. He was aboard as a human observer; the instruments had their own job to do.
Roysland pushed his muscular bulk up the stair to the control bridge. Above him rose the hard, transparent dome of the ship's nose. He stood for a moment, watching the stars move slowly by. Then he walked over to where Kiffer and the ship's officers were standing, near the main control area.
"Captain Dobrin," he said, "we've got our instruments set up; we'd like to find some targets to test-fire at." He paused for a moment and looked at the officer. "You know what we're up against, don't you?"
Captain Dobrin was a lean, graying, grim-faced man who looked as though the last time he had smiled was in his mother's arms. "I know what our chances are; slightly worse than those of a fighting ship engaging the enemy, as I figure it. Besides, I figure that if you're willing to risk your neck—or your mind—I'll take the same chances with the ship." He stopped and looked at the screen, then looked straight up, pointing his finger through the transparent dome of the nose. "We'll head toward that star, there; it's a triple sun, and there's usually plenty of debris floating around in the vicinity of a system like that."
Roysland watched as the ship approached the triple star system. At first it was only a bright point of light. Then, gradually, it separated into two lights, one several times as bright as the other. Finally, the brighter of the two separated into two parts. The three suns stood at the points of an elongated isosceles triangle.
As they neared the trio, the captain ordered the no-space generator cut, and the ship dropped out of drive. Instead of having a velocity measured in light-hours per second, the ship dropped suddenly to miles per second.
"Electromagnetic detectors on," said the Fire Control Officer.
A ship traveling above the velocity of light cannot detect a material body unless there is subetheric radiation coming from the detected body. A star, naturally, can be detected. At those velocities, a star's subetheric radiation can be seen as ordinary light. But there is no way to detect a nonradiating body; in order to fire at a target, it's necessary to cut out the drive and use ordinary detectors to find a nonradiating body such as a meteorite.
"Target at forty million miles," said an observer.
"Track and fire," said the fire control officer.
The robot-controlledaJprojectors swiveled in their mounts, found the mass of nickel-iron that was their target, and hummed softly. Then they clicked.
That was all. Roysland neither saw nor felt anything unusual.
Three and a half minutes later, tardy light brought the news that the meteorite had flared in an actinic blaze of incandescent gas.
"Dead hit," said the observer.
Captain Dobrin looked at Roysland with a silent question.
Roysland nodded. "Go ahead. Let's pick out a few more; let's burn asteroids for a while."
They blasted eighteen planetoids into flaming gas in the next three hours. Roysland Dwyn and Kiffer Samm checked their instrument recordings and ran them through the differential analyzer after each firing.
"There's backwash, of course," said Kiffer. He pointed at a line that wavered up and down near the bottom of the graph. "That's the background—stellar noise from the subelectronic radiation of the nearby stars. Now"—he moved his finger along the graph—"this is the harmonic set up by the backwash at the instant of firing of theaJprojectors.
"It looks pretty high on the graph, but that's because the subnuclear reactions inside a star are so slight that they don't generate much background noise. Actually, the backwash from theaJ's couldn't possibly be called dangerous."
Roysland frowned; his heavy, dark brows pulled down, wrinkling his massive forehead. "Well, they obviously didn't do anything to us. At least, if they did, I haven't noticed it."
Kiffer shrugged. "Nothing harmful, anyway. Now, here's some comparison charts I have; the test runs onaJguns that have been installed in other ships. The wave form is identical; these guns don't react any differently than any other. As far as I can see, there's no reason for these guns to have knocked out the crews of those ships."
Roysland rubbed a finger across his chin and stared at the ceiling. That chin-rubbing gesture was significant to Kiffer; he knew Roysland well enough to know that the big man was thinking. Kiffer kept his mouth shut and waited.
Finally, Roysland snapped his fingers. "Look," he said sharply, "why aren't these things tested the way they're used?"
Kiffer looked puzzled. "The way they're used?" He paused a moment. "Oh, I see what you mean. Why aren't they test-fired while the ship is in no-space drive? That's easy. They have to be connected up to the trackers, and the trackers can't fire at indetectable objects. And you can't detect a meteorite in no-space drive.
"Of course, I suppose we could send out some torpedoes and try to hit them, but that would be sort of wasteful."
"Then the guns aren't tested in no-space, huh?" Roysland said grinning. "Then somebody's been falsifying reports to my office."
Kiffer grinned back. "Sure," he said, "they're tested, but without the robot trackers; I don't see what difference that would make, though."
"Let's not jump to any conclusions. Those things fire in sequence when they're tracking—one right after another, in battery. And they're timed so close together that they might as well be going off all at once. Or, the time lag may have something to do with it, short as it is. Suppose we fire them in no-space drive, just as if it were battle conditions."
"At what?" Kiffer wanted to know. "The robot can't track unless it has a target."
"We've got targets," Roysland said quietly. "Millions of 'em."
"The Torpedoes? But—wait a minute! Millions?" Kiffer slapped his palm against his forehead. "Why didn't I think of it before? The stars, of course!"
"Right," said Roysland. "They radiate in the subetherics. But no one ever thought of firing at them before, because there's no way of telling whether you hit it or not; a star could soak up all the energy of the whole Galactic Fleet without noticing it. But we don't care whether wehitthe target or not; all we want is a target tofireat."
"I'll reset the recorders," Kiffer said. "Let's see what happens."
"I'm going up to the bridge," Roysland said. "Set those gimmicks going; we want a record, even if this knocks us silly."
Up on the bridge, Roysland explained what he wanted done to Captain Dobrin.
"It can't hurt anything," Dobrin said. "We'll take a pot shot at the dwarf out there. They give a fairly small, bright target."
The ship plunged into the no-space of ultradrive as the generators were cut in, and she began to move toward a point just to one side of the dimmest of the three stars.
"Target at three fifty-two million," said the observer.
"Track and fire," said the FCO.
Roysland held his breath as the projectors moved, hummed, and clicked again. And nothing happened.
Roysland let his breath out slowly.
"Was that O.K.?" the fire control officer asked. "We can't tell whether we hit or not."
"I doubt if you could miss even a white dwarf star at this range," Roysland said. "But you're right, of course; there's no way of beingabsolutelypositive." He turned back to the captain. "Let's play around with this for a while. Make a few passes, back and forth at that star and let's see what we get on the recorders."
What they got didn't look like much.
"Here's the background noise," Kiffer said, pointing at the graph. "This time, it's almost a perfect sine wave; it's the backwash from the drive generators. Here's the harmonic generated when theaJ's go off. And here"—he pulled a strip from the differential analyzer—"are the components. This one is the container phase for the energy envelope that holds the raw violence of the beam itself. And this is the carrier wave phase."
Roysland looked at the graphs and shook his head slowly. "And it all looks perfectly harmless."
"Looks, hell!" said Kiffer. "Itisharmless. Believe me, Roysland, it is definitely not the backwash from theaJguns that's causing the mindjammer effect. We'll have to look somewhere else."
"I guess you're right," Roysland agreed reluctantly. "If it isn't here—" His voice trailed off. He was right back where he started, and he didn't have anything to go on. Finally, he reached over to the intercom and punched for the bridge. "O.K., captain," he said, "let's turn the thing around and go home!"
Two weeks after the X-69 landed at Grand Base, Roysland still was stewing around, trying to make sense out of all the data he had.
Report from Bilford Vell, Chief Psychometrist: "The patients seem to be responding fairly well under the microwave treatment. It seems to act very similarly to the electro-shock treatments reputedly used centuries ago for certain types of insanity, although without the deleterious effects. The feedback loop in the prefrontal lobes is partially canceled out when the frequencies of the cerebral activities are the same as, and ninety degrees out of phase with, the microwaves beamed at the head.
"Naturally, this means that a series of treatments is necessary, since the cerebral frequencies are unpredictable and variable, and since the currents in the feedback loop are composed of a number of different frequencies."
Fine, thought Roysland.There's some hope, at least. We know what can cure it, but what can cause it?
Report from Allerdyce Blyt, CinC, Galactic Fleet: "I don't know what you can make out of this, but maybe you can get together with Bilford and figure out what it means. If you ask me, I think the Enlissa have gone nuts. Is it possible there's a backwash from their mindjammer?
"Anyway, here's what's happened.
"During a minor skirmish near the Alavard Cluster, two Enlissa ships came in on attack geodesics toward the GSSViwil. TheViwilis not equipped withaJprojectors, so they had to rely on conventional torpedoes. Since the odds were two to one, they had little hope of surviving, but they had hopes of inflicting some damage on the enemy. So they waited until the Enlissa ships were well within range, and fired.
"The Enlissa ships took no evasive action, and the torpedoes destroyed both ships. There was no need for theViwilto use evasive action, since the enemy shipsdid not fire a single torpedo!
"There have been other instances of similar action.
"In other small skirmishes, theaJguns have proven their effectiveness; they've shot up Enlissa ships before they were in torpedo range. Oddly enough, no human ship equipped withaJ'shas ever been hit by a torpedo."
Roysland went back and reread one of the sentences. "Is it possible there's a backwash from their mindjammer?"
It's possible, sure. Until we know what the mindjammeris,we'll have to admit that anything's possible.
Report from Kiffer Samm: "I've done the checking you suggested. There is a definite effect on the brain, but it isn't permanent, nor noticeable. The backwash of theaJguns causes a slight retardation of nerve impulses. But it isn't enough to cause any reaction—either mental or physiological. It doesn't last enough, in the first place; and it isn't powerful enough, in the second. I don't know what would happen if a person were subjected to such a field over a long period of time, but the situation corrects itself so rapidly that there is no danger of cumulative effects.
"Besides, some of the men affected have never been exposed to the backwash fromaJfire before, while others have been exposed a good many times. If the thing were cumulative, we would have men being knocked out here and there, at random, as the accumulation built up—and it just ain't so.
"The only parallel I can make—as far as long-range effects are concerned—are the effects of the backwash from the drive itself. And that isn't bad at all. Statistically speaking, the crews of spaceships are more alert, and have more interest in their surroundings,afterlong periods of service than they have before exposure. Even so, that is probably due to military work and periodic psychological checkups, rather than to any effect of the field.
"Do you have any other ideas?"
Roysland looked sourly at the report.Ideas? Sure; I've got all kinds of ideas. I wish I had an answer.
Report from General Director Eckisster—delivered via solidiphone:
"Roysland, you're going to have to start moving, here!" The director shifted his heavy bulk in his chair and glowered at Roysland Dwyn. "As far as I can tell, you haven't done a blasted thing! Of all the meaningless reports I ever read, these are the epitome of nonsense." He waved a chubby hand at a pile of papers in his lap. "As I understand it, you've been looking for some sort of effect emanating from our own weapons instead of from the enemy's.
"Now, to me, that's as silly as a man with a sword trying to explain away the stab wound in his belly by claiming that something happened during the fight and the hilt stabbed him. Or a man with a bullet wound trying to claim it was caused by the recoil of his blunderbuss!"
Roysland tapped his fingers softly on the top of his huge black desk until Eckisster was through, then he said: "It's the only hypothesis that fits the facts. I'll admit that we haven't been able to prove anything yet, but I'm convinced that—"
He was interrupted by the chiming of the solidiphone. He cut in a second circuit, and Fleet Commander Allerdyce coalesced in the air next to Eckisster. He glanced at the general director.
"Good afternoon, Eckisster." Then he looked back at Roysland. "I've got your weapon for you. Forty hours ago, Squadron 8477 met the enemy near St. Jairus' Cluster. We won the battle by a small margin, but that's neither here nor there. The important thing right now is what the hospital and salvage ships found when they came in after the battle. All the data isn't in yet, but as near as we can tell so far, a freak accident occurred.
"One of our ships was surprised by an Enlissa ship that came in out of a nearby sun; the enemy ship actually snapped by at less than a hundred miles. A lucky shot hit the drive generators of the enemy ship, and it stopped almost dead in space.
"They managed to get the crew of our own ship with their mindjammer, but something happened aboard the enemy ship, too. Evidently the weapon does have a backwash; the enemy crew was mindjammed, too!"
Roysland and Eckisster both started to say something, but the commander raised his hand. "Wait a second! The point I'm getting at is this: The Enlissa ship was recovered intact; the mindjammer projectors are aboard! I've sent an emergency order to the squadron commander in that sector; the Enlissa ship will be here tomorrow morning. We'll hold it sealed until you and your crew can investigate. The inspectors will have to go in with you, of course, but you'll be in charge of the weapons themselves."
He stopped and speared Eckisster with a frosty look. "I trust that meets with your approval, Eckisster?"
The general director was beaming seraphically. "It does, commander; indeed it does. Thank you. Thank you, so much."
Allerdyce glowered. "I'll be available in a couple of hours. Right now, I've got to get some work done." He cut the circuit.
Eckisster turned his beaming visage from the dissolving image of Allerdyce to the blocky figure of Roysland.
"May I suggest that you try investigating what few facts the fleet may have turned up? Who knows—you may find them profitable, eh? Or perhaps you're too busy trying to figure out how theaJguns work to have any time for the enemy's mindjammer?
"However that may be, I'll leave you to your work, bumblehead."
Roysland shot to his feet. "Good! Maybe I could get some work done, myself, if you weren't around needling me!" He reached out to snap off the solidiphone switch, but Eckisster, still smiling benevolently, was already fading. Roysland got the impression that his smile, Cheshirelike, still lingered after he had gone.
The crew of the Enlissa ship were the first live aliens ever seen by human beings. Their corpses had been dissected by the thousands, but the living organism had never been investigated before.
"This gives us a jump on them," one of the biologists said. "As far as we know, no living human has ever been caught by the Enlissa."
Roysland, who was watching the aliens being herded out of the captured ship, turned his head to look at the biologist. "They don't know we've got this ship, either," he said.
The biologist blinked, then nodded. "Yeah. I see what you mean."
They were standing on the broad spread of plastalloy that covered the great landing field of Grand Base, standing in the shadow of the huge alien ship. The Psych men were pushing the Enlissa out of the ship, through the path formed by the Inspection Corps men and Roysland's own Special Weapons Group of the Research Division. The Psych men simply pushed them into the drop chutes from the ship. Other Psych men kept them moving toward the trucks that were taking them away.
The Enlissa weren't quite as tall, on the average, as a human being. The skeletal structure was a little heavier, and the section corresponding to the human rib cage was a series of armor plates that completely enclosed the viscera. The pale blue-violet of their skins came from the cobalt-protein complex that carried the oxygen through their blood, performing the same function that hemoglobin does in the human animal.