Oberheim (Voices) Part 51

It was equally clear that Frank himself was unsure of the truth, and had been unnerved by the youth's allegations.

"Who the h.e.l.l do you think you are?" bellowed the other. "Giving ME orders! Stand aside or I'll kill you both."

This was too much for the MP's. Who was their rightful commander?

What was happening? They looked at each other in confusion, continued to hold the gunnery officer, though less firmly. Indecision reigned upon the bridge.

It was at this moment that Chaos played her final trick.

"Admiral," spoke an officer, who had turned back to face his station.

"Two enormous Carriers have just come out of warp. Super-Soviet configuration. Bearing 00, 666.

"It's the Russians, sir."

"It's the Russians, sir."

"Now look what you've done!" cried Hayes in his fury, unable to realize that all Frank had DONE was to keep him from killing a man untried.

"Get him out of here."

The MP's looked again at each other, then at Frank, not knowing who was meant or what should be done. The latter inclined his head swiftly, and they took the young officer away. As they left it, Calder entered the enclosure.

Hayes whirled in fuming circles, ordering the chutes to be lowered and the attack-ships discharged. The officers at their stations either carried out his instructions or turned to Frank, who with a gesture of weary despair raised his arms as if to say, "What else can we do?"

"We've got to move away from the gate, General," came the timid voice of the deployment officer.

"Then do it, a.s.s! Take us back and to port." And Hayes rattled off some meaningless coordinates. Like a gored lion he stalked back and forth, out of control, breathing too deeply and at intervals releasing desperate, maddened execrations. Another hesitant voice.

"They've..... They've begun to discharge and form ranks."

"Of COURSE they have! They didn't come here to talk!"

In his earlier, false-confident musing, Hayes had said that it would take twice the Fleet's strength to overmatch him. And that was exactly what he now confronted---two Soviet Supercarriers, each nearly equal in girth and firepower to the Dreadnought queen, and each bearing a greater number of swarming killer bees.

The Russians did not attack immediately, but remained at some distance, waiting perhaps for all their vessels to be deployed, or to be sure that Hayes was alone and the fight would go their way. Nor did the Americans make the first move, intimidated and dismayed by the sudden change in their fortunes, staring across the void at the ever widening fence of the opposing Armada.

An army used to winning, rarely knows how to face defeat.

The Dreadnought had drawn back and away from the remains of the broken Gate, so that now it lay ahead of them and far to the left. The out-ships as well, low on fuel and tentative, spread outward so that two almost parallel walls were formed, filled with eyes. The would-be combatants faced each other across the margin that they themselves created: the empty distance of war's chasm, that unholy no-man's land wherein, once entered, frightened men kill frightened men until one side has had enough.

"Shall I try to contact them?" asked the young com officer pitifully.

But at that moment the Russians started forward.

But at that moment something else occurred as well. A patch of silvery sheen became visible at a distance to the Commonwealth right, almost at a direct line between the armies from the broken and still dark-smoldering gate upon their left. The advancing Soviet forces came to a halt, confused. But Hayes became suddenly calm, and a vengeful smile played about the corners of his mouth. But he must play this new card correctly.

"What is it?" asked a voice. And even as the words were spoken a fourth Goliath appeared, for an instant gleaming white, then graying once more as it pa.s.sed through the pierced screen of silver. Hayes was not the only one with a star gate. The American Seventh Fleet, entombed within the carrier Eisenhower, was at hand.

Quickly taking stock of the situation, Commanding Admiral Robeson moved to join the re-heartened Third, attempted to make contact with both parties, and reluctantly, since he did not know how things would turn, began to discharge and align his own forces. The parallel planes still existed, only now they were closer and more equal, a colossal gathering of some fourteen hundred ships, prepared for a confrontation that even the mythic battles of the Bhagavad-Gita could not match.

And this was no fable of G.o.ds and clouds and chariots, decrying the illusions of the physical world, but hard and deadly reality. And if the two sides of fire-breathing metal, like ghastly cymbals of Death, were brought together with a crash, the awful sound would shatter the uneasy stillness and continue to be heard, would ripple far, far in all directions, and the peace that good men prayed for would be lost.

Hayes would have his Great War, after all.

"General Hayes," said the Dreadnought com officer. "Admiral Robeson is requesting to speak with Admiral Frank."

"Cut him off," was Hayes' dispa.s.sionate reply.

"WHAT?" cried Frank hotly. "Why shouldn't I speak to him?"

Again the general's voice was calm. "It's some trick of the Soviets'.

John Robeson no longer commands the Seventh Fleet."

"But sir," began the com officer. "He's on the coded frequency, and the voice match---"

"I SAID, cut him off."

And then Frank did it. He uttered the simple (and often just) word that no subordinate, any time, anywhere, in any army of men, is ever allowed to speak.

"No."

"What the h.e.l.l do you mean, NO!" And suddenly all Hayes' former fury returned. His face distorted wildly, and the veins of his skull and neck stood out further still.

"I've known John Robeson for thirty years. There's no way he would do anything..... It's YOU I don't trust. No more running. No more hiding from the truth." He turned to the terrified young man, whose eyes moved back and forth between them. "Soldier, open that channel."

"You, traitorous, DOG!" screamed Hayes, and began to rush at him, heedless.

But all at once he stopped, and stood perfectly still. His right eyebrow twitched strangely, and the whole face began to work in comic spasms.

He collapsed to the floor, where Calder caught him up, and rested the beloved head on his knee. The general's trembling jaw uttered sounds but could not, as it struggled so desperately to do, create intelligible speech. Charles William Hayes had suffered a ma.s.sive stroke, and lay dying in his soldier's arms.

"Get a doctor in here, quickly," ordered Frank, once again his own master. Then turning to the com-man, "Put Robeson on visual, apprise him of our status, and tell him I'll be with him as soon as I can."

At that moment the only son of William and Charlotte Hayes gave up his spirit, trying to tell his only friend that he loved him.

"You can't....." blubbered Calder. "No, please, no." Their foreheads met, and he wept.

Frank approached him, and put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Michael. I truly am. But he would have led us all to ruin."

"You!" shocked Calder through his tears. "YOU killed him..... He was going to save us!" And in a sudden fury of determination like that of his dead idol, he seized the pistol and Hayes' hip. And as the other moved away, waving NO with his hands in front of him, shot Frank in the chest and killed him.

Calder lowered his master's body gently. Then rising, holding the weapon still, looked about him and brandished it fiercely. His second shot destroyed the motor-drive to the bridge's double doors, sealing them shut. After another threatening wave at the benumbed circle of men, he turned to the astonished face of Robeson on the screen.

"Calder, what in G.o.d's name?"

But the man's senses were gone. All that remained were hatred and death, wrenched forward through bitter tears.