To the Stars Trilogy Part 35

All of our s.p.a.cers are being fitted with weapons. The enemy have only a few ships manned by traitors.

They may have won these battles. We will win the war...

"Urgent report," the computer said. A sheet of paper emerged from the desk top. Auguste Blanc looked at it then pa.s.sed it over.

"It is addressed to you," he said.

Thurgood-Smythe read it quickly, then smiled.

"I ordered all reports of enemy ship movements to be screened and a.n.a.lyzed. They need food more than we do. They have now sent a number of ships to Halvm6rk. One of the largest food planets. I want those ships to land and load completely. Then leave..."

"So we can capture them!" Auguste Blanc was exuber-ant, his earlier fears forgotten for the moment. 'A genius of a plan, Thurgood-Smythe, may I congratulate you. They brought this war upon themselves and now they will pay. We will take the food and give them starvation in return."

"Exactly what I had in mind, Auguste. Exactly."

They smiled at each other with s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure.

"They have only themselves to blame," Thurgood-Smythe said. "We gave them peace and they gave us war. We will now show them the high price that must be paid for that decision. When we are done with them there will be peace in the galaxy forever. They have forgotten that they are the children of Earth, that we built the common-wealth of planets for their sakes. They have forgotten what it cost to terraform all of their planets to make them suitable for occupation by mankind, the cost in lives and money. They have rebelled against our gentle hand of rule. We shall now clench this hand into a fist and they shall be punished. They started this rebellion, this war-but we will finish it."

Three.

"You're going now," Alzbeta said. She spoke calmly, almost emotionlessly, but her hands were clenched hard on Jan's. They stood in the shadow of a great bulk grain carrier, one of the shining cylinders of metal that rose up high behind them. He looked down into her gentle features and could find no words to answer with; he simply nod-ded. The love in her face, the yearning there, they were too much for him and he had to turn away.

It was the irony of life that after all his lonely years on this twilight planet, now, married and a father-to-be, with a measure of peace and happiness at last, now was the time he had to leave. But there were no alternatives. He was the only one here who would fight for the rights of the people of this agricultural world, who might possibly see to it that some day a complete and decent society might grow on this planet. Because he was the only one on Halvmo~rk who had been born on Earth and who knew the reality of existence there and in the rest of the Earth Commonwealth. Halvmo~rk was a deadend world now, where the inhabitants were agricultural slaves, working to feed the other planets for no return other than their bare existence. In the present emergency the rebel planets would expect them to keep on working as they always had. Well they would farm still-but only if they could be free of their planetary prison. Free to be part of the Common-wealth culture, free to have their children educated-and finally free to change the stunted and artificial society forced upon them by Earth. Jan knew that he would not be thanked, or even liked, for what he was going to do. He would do it still. He owed it to the generations to come. To his own child among others.

"Yes, we must leave now," he said.

"You are needed here." She did not want to plead with him, but it was in her voice.

"Try to understand. This planet, big as it is to us, it's really only a very small part of the galaxy. A long time ago I lived on Earth, worked there very successfully, and was happy enough until I discovered what life was really like for most of the people. I tried to help them-but that is illegal on Earth. I was arrested for this, stripped of every-thing, then shipped out here as a common laborer. It was that or death. Not too hard a choice. But while the slow years pa.s.sed here, the rebellion that I was a part of has succeeded.

Everywhere but on Earth. For the moment my work here is done, the corn has been saved and will go out to the hungry planets. But now that we have fed the rebellion I want to make sure that we share in the victory as well. Do you understand? I must go. And it is time. The orbits have been calculated and these ships will have to lift very soon.

Alzbeta looked steadfastly into Jan Kulozik's face as he spoke, memorizing those thin, taut features. She put her arms about his wiry and hardmuscled body then, pressing tight against it, so that the child within her was between them, in the sheltered warmth of their bodies, clutching hard as though when she released him she might never hold him again. It was a possibility she did not consider, yet it was lurking just out of sight all of the time. There was a war being fought among the alien stars and he was going to it.

But he would come back; that was the only thought she would let her brain hold on to.

"Come back to me," she whispered aloud, then pulled away from him, running toward their home. Not wanting to look at him again, afraid that she would break down and make him ashamed.

"Ten minutes," Debhu called out from the foot of the boarding ladder. "Let's get aboard and strap in."

Jan turned and climbed up the ladder. One of the crewmen was waiting in the airlock and he sealed the outer hatch as soon as they had pa.s.sed through.

"I'm going to the bridge," Debhu said. "Since you've never been in s.p.a.ce you'll strap in on deck "I've worked in free fall," Jan said.

The question was on Debhu's lips, but he never spoke it. Halvmdrk was a prison planet. It no longer mattered why anyone should have been sent here. "Good," he finally said. "I can use you. We have lost a lot of trained men. Most of the crew have never been in s.p.a.ce before. Come with me to the bridge."

Jan found the operation a fascinating one. He must have arrived on Halvmo.rk in a ship very much like this one-but he had no memory of it. All he remembered was a windowless prison cell on a s.p.a.cer. And drugged food that kept him docile and easily controlled. Then uncon-sciousness, to waken to find the ships gone and himself a castaway. It had all happened far too many years ago.

But this was very different. The ship they were aboard was identified only by a number, as were all of the other tugs. It was a brute, built for power alone, capable of lifting a thousand times its own ma.s.s. Like the other tugs it lived in s.p.a.ce, in perpetual orbit. To be used only once every four Earth years when the seasons changed on this twilight planet. Then, before the fields burned in summer and the inhabitants moved to the new winter hemisphere, the ships would come for their crops. Deep s.p.a.cers, spider-like vessels that were built in s.p.a.ce for s.p.a.ce, that could never enter a planet's atmosphere. They would emerge from s.p.a.ce drive and go into orbit about the planet, only then unlocking from the great tubes of the bulk carriers they had brought. Then it would be the time to use the tugs.

When the crews changed over the dormant, orbiting ships would glow wi~th life, light and warmth as their power would be turned on, their stored air released and warmed. They in their turn would lock to the empty bulk carriers and carefully pull them from orbit, killing their velocity until they dropped into the atmosphere below, easing them gently down to the surface: The carriers were loaded now, with food to feed the hungry rebel planets. Their blasting ascent was smooth, computer controlled, perfect. Rising up, faster and faster through the atmosphere, out of the atmosphere, into the eternal blinding sunlight of s.p.a.ce. The computer program that controlled this operation had been written by comptechs now centuries dead. Their work lived after them. Radar determined proximity. Orbits were matched, gasjets flared, great bulks of metal weighing thousands of tonnes drifted slowly together with micrometric precision. They closed, touched, engaged, sealed one to the other.

'All connections completed," the computer said, while displaying the same information on the screen.

"Ready to unlock and transfer crew."

Debhu activated the next phase of the program. One after another the gigantic grapples disengaged, sending shudders of sound through the tug's frame. Once free of its mighty burden the tug drifted away, then jetted toward the deep s.p.a.cer that was now lashed to the cargo of grain. Gentle contact was made and the airlock of one ship was sealed to the other. As soon as the connection was com-plete the inner door opened automatically.

"Let's transfer," Debhu said, leading the way. "We usually remain while the tugs put themselves into orbit and power down to standby status. Not this time. When each ship is secure it is cleared to depart. Every one of them has a different destination. This food is vitally needed."

A low buzzer was sounding on the bridge and one of the readouts was flashing red. "Not too serious,"

Debhu said. "It's a grapple lock, not secured. Could be a monitoring failure or dirt in the jaws. They pick it up when we drop planetside. Do you want to take a look at it?"

"No problem," Jan said. "That's the kind of work I have been doing ever since I came to this planet.

Where are the suits?"

The tool kit was an integral part of the suit, as was the computer radio link that would direct him to the malfunc-tioning unit where the trouble was. The suit rustled and expanded as the air was pumped from the lock; then the outer hatch swung open.

Jan had no time to appreciate the glory of the stars, unshielded now by any planetary atmosphere. Their jour-ney could not begin until he had done his work. He activated the direction finder, then pulled himself along the handbar in the direction indicated by the holographic green arrow that apparently floated in s.p.a.ce before him. Then stopped abruptly as a column of ice particles sud-denly sprang out of the hull at his side. Other growing pillars came into being all around him; he smiled to himself and pushed on. The ship was venting the air from the cargo. The air and water vapor froze instantly into tiny ice particles as it emerged. The vacuum of s.p.a.ce would dehydrate and preserve the corn, lightening the cargo and helping to prevent the interplanetary spread of organisms.

The frozen plumes were dying down and drifting away by the time he came to the grapple. He used the key to open the cover of the control box and activated the manual override. Motors whirred, he could feel their vibration through the palm of his hand, and the ma.s.sive jaws slowly ground apart. He looked closely at their smooth surfaces, at what appeared to be an ice-crystaled clump of mud flattened on one of them. He brushed it away and pressed the switch in the control box. This time the jaws closed all the way and a satisfactory green light appeared. Not the world's most difficult repair, he thought as he sealed the box again.

"Return at once!" the radio squawked loudly in his ears, then went dead. No explanation given. He unclipped his safety line and began to pull back in the direction of the airlock.

It was closed. Locked. Sealed.

While he was still a.s.similating this incredible fact, trying to get a response on his radio, he saw the reason.

Another deep s.p.a.cer came drifting across their bow, reaction jets flaring, magnetic grapples hurling toward them, trailing their cables. Clearly visible on its side in the harsh sunlight was a familiar blue globe on white.

The flag of Earth.

For long seconds Jan just hung there, the sound of his heart pounding heavy in his ears, trying to understand what was happening. It suddenly became obvious when he saw the s.p.a.celock on the other ship begin to open.

Of course. The Earth forces weren't going to give up that easily. They were out there, watching. They had observed the food convoy being a.s.sembled, had easily guessed the destination. And Earth needed the food in these hulls just as much as the rebel planets did. Needed it to eat-and as a weapon to starve their opponents into submission. They c6uld not have it!

Jan's anger flared just as the first of the suited figures emerged and dropped towards the hull close to him. They must be stopped. He groped through his tool kit, pulled out the largest powered screwdriver there and thumbed it on, full speed. It whined to life, its integral counterweight spinning to neutralize the twisting action on his body. He held this extemporized weapon before him as he launched himself at the approaching s.p.a.cemen.

Surprise was on his side; he had not been seen in the shadows on the s.p.a.cer's skin. The man half-turned as Jan came up, but he was too late. Jan pushed the whirling blade against the other's side, clutched onto him so he could not drift away, watched the metal bite into the tough fabric-then saw the plume Qf frozen air jet out. The man arched, struggled-then went limp. Jan pushed the corpse away, turned, kicked to one side so the man coming toward him floated harmlessly by. He was ready then to jab his weap-on at another s.p.a.ceman coming along behind him.

It was not as easy to do the second time. The man struggled as Jan clutched his arm. They tumbled about, floating and twisting, until someone grabbed Jan by the leg. Then still another.

It was an unequal struggle and he could not win. They were armed, he saw rocket guns ready in their hands, but they holstered them as they held him. Jan stopped strug-gling. They were not going to kill him-for the moment. They obviously wanted prisoners. He was overwhelmed by a sense of blackest despair as they pulled him to one side as more attackers poured by, then dragged him back into their ship and through the s.p.a.celock. Once it was sealed, they stripped the s.p.a.cesuit from him and hurled him to the floor. One of them stepped forward and kicked him hard against the side of the head, then over and over again in the ribs until the pain blacked out his vision. They wanted their prisoners alive, but not unbruised. That was the last thing he remembered as the boot caught him in the head again and he roared down into painfilled darkness.

Four.

"Some they killed," Debhu said, holding the wet cloth to the side of Jan's head, "but only if they fought too hard and it was dangerous to capture them. They wanted prisoners. The rest of us were outnumbered, clubbed down. Does that feel any better?"

"Feels like my skull is crumbling inside."

"No, it's just bruising. They've sewn up the cuts. No broken ribs, the doctor said. They want us in good shape for public display when we get to Earth. They can't have taken many prisoners before they captured us. It hasn't been that kind of a war." He hesitated a second, then spoke more quietly. "Do you have a record? I mean, is there any reason they would like to know who you were, to identify you?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I've never been to Earth, or in direct contact with earthies before. They may have records on me, I can't be sure. But they took retinal photographs of us all. You too, while you were unconscious."

Jan nodded~ then closed his eyes briefly at the pain that followed the movement.

"I think they will be very happy when they identify me," he said. "I doubt if I will be."

The pattern made by the small blood vessels inside the eye is far more individual than any fingerprint. It can be neither forged nor altered. Everyone on Earth had this pattern recorded at birth and at regular intervals thereaf-ter. Given a retinal print a computer could sort through these billions of photographs in a few moments. They would come up with his. Along with his ident.i.ty and his criminal record. They would be very glad to discover these interesting facts.

"Not that it's worth worrying about anyway," Debhu said, leaning back against the metal wall of their prison. "We're all for the knackers in any case. Probably a show trial first to entertain the proles.

Then-who knows what. Nothing~good I'm sure. An easy death is the best we can hope for."

"No it's not," Jan said, ignoring the pain, forcing himself to sit up. "We are going to have to escape."

Debhu smiled sympathetically. "Yes. 1 suppose we ought to."

"Don't patronize me," Jan said angrly. "I know what I'm saying. I'm from Earth, which is more than anyone else in this room can say. I know how these people think and work. We're dead anyway so we have nothing to lose by trying."

"If we break out of here we have no way of taking over the ship. Not from armed men."

"That's the answer then. We don't do a thing now. We wait until we've landed. There will be guards of course, but the rest of the crew will be at their stations. We won't have to take over the ship. Just get away from it."

"Simple enough." Debhu smiled. "I'm with you so far. Now do you have any suggestions how we get out of this locked cell?"

"Plenty. I want you to move around quietly among the others. I want everything they have. Watches, tools, coins, anything. Whatever they were left with. When I see what they have I'll tell you how we are going to get out of here."

Jan did not want to explain, to give them any false hopes. He rested and drank some water, looking around the bare metal room in which they had been imprisoned.

There were some thin matresses scattered about on the hard plastic floor, a sink and toilet unit secured to one wall. A single barred door was set into the opposite wall. No spying devices were visible, but that did not necessarily mean that they weren't there. He would take what precau-tions he could, hoping that their captors' surveillance would be a casual one.

"How do they feed us?" Jan asked as i)ebhu dropped down beside him.

"They pa.s.s the food through that slide in the door. Thin disposable dishes, like that cup you have there.

Nothing we can use for weapons.

"I wasn't thinking of that. What's beyond the door?"

"Short length of hall. Then another locked door. Both doors are never opened at the same time."

"Better and better. Is there a guard in that short stretch of hall?"

"Not that I've ever seen. No need for it. We'ye got some things for you from the men...

"Don't show me yet. Just tell me."

"Junk for the most part. Coins, keys, a nail clipper, a small computer "That's the best news yet. Any watches?"

"No. They took them away. The computer was an accident. Built into a pendant the man wore around his neck. Now can you tell me what this is all about?"

"It's about getting out of here. I think we'll have en6ugh to build what I need. Microelectronic circuitry.

That's my field~~r it was until they arrested me. Do the lights ever go out in here?"

"Not yet they haven't."

"Then we'll do it the bard way. I'll want all of the stuff you have collected. I'll pa.s.s back anything I can't use. If they are taking us to Earth-how long will the trip take?"

'About two weeks subjective time. Half again as much in spatial time."

"Good. I'll go slow and get it right."

The lights were never turned off or lowered. Jan doubted if the prisoners were being watched more than casually-he had to believe that or there was no point in his even making an attempt at escape. He had sorted through the items in his pockets by touch and separated~~out thc keys. Then, after he had lain down, he spread theiti out on tbe fi~~or in the shelter of his body and that of the rnan be~e him. They were small plastic tubes, in diff~ent 60lors, w~h a 'ring at one end. To unlock a door they were simply inserted in 'the hole in the face of the lock' mechanism. Th~ were so commonplace and ubiqui-~ people were so used to them that they nev~r stopped ~think a~~~ut~tbe mechanism inside. Surely most people ~obably itever even realized that there ~as anything contained withiri the apparently solid plastic.

Jan knew that there was a complex mechanism sealed inside the ~ubes. A microwave receiver, a microchip pro-cessor and a' tiny battery. ~When the key was inserted in the lock a signal was transmitted by the lock" circuits that activated the concealed key ~echanism. A coded signal was sent b~the key in return. If it was the correct one the door was unlocked, while at the same time a brief but intense magn~ic field recharged the battery. However if the wrong key was inserted and an incorrect code was returned not only dId th'e lock not open, but the mec~ha-nism cdmpletely discharged the battery, rendering the key useless.'

Using the blade of the naiI~clipper, Jan shaved away care~ly at the plastic. He was certain now that the job could be done. He had tools, circuitry and power supply. With patience-and skill-he should be able to build what ~e needed. Microchip technology was so commonplace that people tended to foi'get that these infinitesimal micro-processors were built into every single mechanical device tha,t they possessed.

Jan was well aware of this, since he had 4~ signed many circuits of this kind. He knew equally well how to alter them to his own advantage.

One-of the keys~as scavenged for its battery alone. The two filament-thin wires from it were used to probe the circuitry of a second key. To short out and alter the connections there. The key's transmitter became a receiv-er, a probe~to divine the secret of the lock on the cell door. When it had been con~ructed to the best of his ability, Jan 'spoke to Debhu.

"We're ready for the first step now. I'm going to see if I can read out the loqk code on this door. This would be impossible on a~really sophisticated lork mechanism, so I'm hoping this one ha~ normal interior door secu~ty."

"You think it will w~rk?"

Jan smiled. "Let's say that I hope it will work. The only way L can test it is by actually trying it~ But I'll need your help."

'Anything. What do you want?"