Our Friends From Frolix 8 (18 page)

‘Sir,’ General Hefele said, ‘I am familiar with the T-144 class of picket ships, the class including
Badger.
Because of the long periods they must remain in space, and the distances they need to cover, they are built too clumsily to maneuver to where a bow shot, I use that as an example, could effectively be—’

‘You mean,’ Gram said, ‘that my picket ships are obsolete? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because,’ General Rayburn with his thin, black moustache said, ‘it never occurred to us that (one) Provoni might return, and (two) that a picket ship stationed in some vast area of empty space could sight Provoni if, or I suppose I should say when, Provoni returned.’ He gestured. ‘The number of parsecs it—’

‘Generals Rayburn and Hefele,’ Gram said, ‘you will begin to compose resignation notes. Have them ready for me within an hour.’ He lay back, then, abruptly started up; he pressed a button which turned on his general fone screen. It showed the Wyoming computer, or at least a section of it.

‘Technician,’ he instructed.

A white-smocked programmer appeared. ‘Yes, Council Chairman.’

Gram said, ‘I want a prognosis on this situation: a T-144
picket ship has encountered
Gray Dinosaur
at’ – he reached for his desk, groping and straining and grunting – ‘at these coordinates.’ He read them to the technician, who was of course recording these instructions. ‘I want to know,’ he said, ‘with all facts considered, what are the chances that a T-144 class ship could destroy the
Gray Dinosaur
?’

The technician rewound the tape, then plugged the deck into the computer’s input and turned the switch to on. Behind plastic frames, wheels spun around; tapes wound themselves and rewound themselves.

Mary Scourby, Minister of Agriculture, said, ‘Why don’t we just wait and see the outcome of the battle?’

‘Because,’ Willis Gram said, ‘that damn
Dinosaur
and that donkey Provoni driving it – plus their nonterrestrial friend – it may be all souped-up with weapons. And a fleet may be following.’ To General Hefele, who was already painstakingly writing out his resignation, Gram said, ‘Do our radar scopes sight anything else in that area? Ask
Badger.
’

From his coat pocket, General Hefele brought forth a transmitter-receiver. ‘Any other blips seen by
Badger
?’ A pause. ‘No.’ He returned to writing his resignation.

The technician in Wyoming said, ‘Mr. Council Chairman, we have the 996-D computer’s response to your query. It feels that the third message from Thors Provoni, the one we’re picking up on all forty meter band frequencies, is the critical datum. The computer analyzes that the statement beginning, “We will join you in six days” implies that one of the aliens is with Provoni. Not knowing the alien’s powers, it cannot compute, but it does go on to answer a correlative — the
Gray Dinosaur
cannot out-maneuver a T-144 picket ship for very long. So the unknown variable – the presence of the alien – is too great. It can’t compute the situation.’

‘I’m receiving a message from the crew monitoring
Badger
,’ General Rayburn said suddenly. ‘Be quiet.’ He tilted his head on one side, toward the side of his ear-insert fone.

Silence.

‘
Badger’s
gone,’ General Rayburn said.

‘
Gone?
’ A half-dozen voices spoke up at once. ‘Gone?’
Gram demanded. ‘Gone where?’

‘Into hyperspace. We’ll know soon because, as has been abundantly shown, a ship can remain in hyperspace for ten, twelve, fifteen minutes at the most. We won’t have to wait long.’

‘
Dinosaur
took off right into hyperspace?’ General Hefele asked, incredulously. ‘That’s only done as a last resort – the most extreme evasion measure possible. And they drew
Badger
into it after them. Maybe
Dinosaur
has been rebuilt; maybe its exterior surfaces are now of an alloy that does not decompose rapidly in hyperspace. Maybe they need only to wait until
Badger
blows up or returns to mutual or paraspace. You know, the
Gray Dinosaur
that left this system ten years ago may not be the
Gray Dinosaur
that’s coming back.’

‘
Badger
recognized it,’ General Hefele said. ‘It’s the same ship, and if modified, at least not so outwardly. Captain Greco of
Badger
, before he dropped down into hyperspace, said that it fitted the ident foto made fifteen years ago to the last jot and tittle, except—’

‘“Except”?’ Gram asked, grinding his molars. I’ve got to stop grinding my teeth, he realized; I broke right through that upper right cap, that time. That should have taught me. He leaned back, fooled with his pillows.

‘Except,’ General Hefele said, ‘some of the exterior sensors were either missing or visibly changed, possibly damaged. And of course the hull was deeply pitted.’

‘
Badger
could see all that?’ Gram said wonderingly.

‘The new Knewdsen radar scopes, the so-called eyepiece models, can—’

‘Be quiet.’ Gram was consulting his watch. ‘I’ll time them,’ he said vigorously. ‘It’s been about three minutes already, hasn’t it? I’ll make it five, just to be on the safe side.’ He sat in silence, studying his Omega watch; everyone else studied his own.

Five minutes passed.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Over in the corner, Camelia Grimes, the Minister of Job
Opportunities and Education, began to sniffle quietly into her lace handkerchief. ‘He lured them to their death,’ she half-spoke, half-whispered huskily. ‘Oh, dear, it’s so sad, just so sad. All those men lost.’

Gram said, ‘Yeah, that’s sad. It’s also sad, too, that he got by a picket ship. One chance in – what? A billion? That a picket ship would pick it up in the first place. It almost looked like then and there we had him. Nailed down; snuffed, as a sight for his alien friends to witness.’

To General Hefele, General Rayburn said, ‘Are there any other ships which might pick up the
Gray Dinosaur
when and if it emerges from hyperspace?’

General Hefele said, ‘No.’

‘So we won’t know if it emerged,’ Gram said. ‘Maybe it was destroyed, too, along with
Badger.
’

‘We’ll know when and if it comes out of hyperspace,’ General Hefele said, ‘because as soon as it emerges, it’ll begin transmitting that signal on the forty meter band, again.’ To an aide he said, ‘Have my com-net monitor for a renewed indication of their transmission.’ To Gram he said, ‘I’m assuming—’

‘You may so assume,’ General Rayburn said. ‘No radio signal can pass out of hyperspace into paraspace.’

General Hefele said to his aide, ‘Find out if Provoni’s signal was cut off a few minutes ago.’

A moment later, through the intercom equipment which he wore from several neck straps, the tall, young aide had his message. ‘Signal cut out twenty-two minutes ago and has not resumed.’

‘They’re still in hyperspace,’ General Hefele said. ‘And the signal may never resume; it may be all over.’

‘I still want your resignation,’ Gram said.

A red light lit up on the console of his desk. He picked up the appropriate fone and said, ‘Yes? You have her with you?’

‘Miss Charlotte Boyer,’ his third-level clearance A receptionist said. ‘Brought in here by two PSS men who had to drag her all the way. My goodness, their shins are going to be blade and blue tomorrow, and she bit one on the hand; it
tore a whole lot of flesh loose, and he’s going to have to go to the infirmary right away.’

Gram said, ‘Get four military MPs to spell the PSS men. When you have them, and they’ve got her completely under control, then let me know and I’ll see her.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘If a certain individual named Denny Strong barges into the building looking for her,’ Gram said, ‘I want him arrested for trespassing and I want him in a jail cell immediately. If he tries to physically break into my office, here, I want the guards to snuff him. On the spot. The second his hand touches the handle to the door to this room.’ I could have done it once myself, Gram thought. But now I’m too old and my reflexes are too slow. Nonetheless, he lifted the lid at the corner of his desk-top… which brought the butt of a .38 magnum pistol within easy reach. If Nicholas Appleton’s mental image of him – and his knowledge of him – are correct, then I’d better be ready, he thought. And good God, he thought, I have to be ready vis-à-vis Nick Appleton –just because he left the building voluntarily and with no show of violence, there’s no guarantee that he’ll continue to go along with this.

That’s the trouble with being that age, he reflected. You idealize the whole woman, her self, her personality… but at my age it’s simply how good a lay they’d make and that’s that. I’ll enjoy her, use her up, teach her a few things she probably doesn’t know about sexual relations – even though she’s ‘been around’ – that she hasn’t dreamed up. She can be my little fish, for example. And once she learns them, does them, she’ll remember them the rest of her life. They’ll haunt her, the memory of them… but on some level she’ll be yearning for them again: they were so nice. Let’s see what Nick Appleton, or Denny Strong, or whoever gets her after me, will do to gratify that. And she won’t be able to force herself to tell him what it is that’s the matter.

He chuckled.

‘Council Chairman,’ General Hefele said, ‘I have news from my aide.’ His aide bent over him, covertly speaking
into his ear. ‘I regret to say – the forty meters’ signal has resumed.’

‘That’s that,’ Gram said stoically. ‘I knew they’d come back out; they wouldn’t have gone in if they hadn’t known they could handle it… and
Badger
couldn’t.’ Laboriously, he heaved himself up to a sitting position, then rolled over, extended a massive leg, raised himself to a standing position. ‘My bathrobe,’ he said, looking around.

‘I have it, sir,’ Camelia Grimes said; she held it up for him to back into. ‘Now your slippers.’

General Hefele said frigidly, ‘They’re right by your feet.’ And thought, Do you need someone to put them on for you, Council Chairman? You gigantic mushroom that has to be waited on day and night, who lies in bed like a sick kid home from school, evading the realities of adulthood. And he’s our ruler. He’s the person primarily responsible for stopping the invaders.

‘You always forget,’ Gram said, facing him, ‘that I’m a telepath. If you said the things you think, you’d be put up before a gas-grenade squad. And you know it.’ He felt genuine anger, and it was rare for thoughts alone to ruffle him. But in this case it had gone too far. ‘You want a vote?’ he asked, waving his arm at them all, the collected assembly of the Extraordinary Committee for Public Safety, plus Earth’s two top military planner-advisers.

‘“A vote”?’ Duke Bostrich asked, smoothing, reflexively, his distinguished silver hair. ‘As to what?’

Fred Rayner, from Interior, said acidly, ‘Mr. Gram’s removal as Council Chairman, and someone else–of the group of us here in this room – taking his place.’ He smiled starkly, thinking, Must it be spelled out, as with children? This is our chance to rid ourselves of the fat old fool; let him spend the rest of his life untangling his convoluted personal affairs… an example of which came up just now, this Boyer girl.

‘I’d like a vote,’ Gram said, after a pause. During the pause he had listened in on their various thoughts and knew that he would be given a support vote; hence he was scarcely worried. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘vote!’

Rayner said, ‘He’s read our thoughts; he knows how it’ll come out.’

‘Or he’s bluffing,’ Mary Scourby, Agriculture, said. ‘He’s read our thoughts and knows we can dislodge him, and will do so.’

‘So,’ Camelia Grimes said, ‘we will have to vote after all.’

By a show of hands they derived a vote of six for retention of Gram and four against.

‘Tiddly winks, old man,’ Gram said scorchingly to Fred Rayner. ‘Catch a woman if you can; if you can’t catch a woman, catch a clean old man.’

‘And the “clean old man”,’ Rayner said, ‘is you.’

Throwing his head back, Willis Gram howled with delight.

Then, stepping into his slippers, he stumped toward the main doors of the room.

‘Council Chairman,’ General Hefele said quickly, ‘we may be able to contact
Dinosaur
and get some idea of the demands Provoni will be making, and to what extent his alien cohorts can and will—’

‘I’ll talk to you later,’ Gram said, opening the door. He paused, then, and said, half to himself, ‘Tear up your resignations, Generals. I was momentarily upset; it’s nothing.’ But you, Fred Rayner, he thought. I will get you, you double-domed monstrosity. I will see you snuffed for what you thought of me.

At third level, Willis Gram, in bathrobe, pajamas and slippers, sauntered up to the desk of his clearance A receptionist – a rating which permitted her to know about and deal with his most personal problems and activities. At one time Margaret Plow had been his mistress… she had then been eighteen. And look at her now, he said to himself. In her forties. The energy, the fire, was gone; all that remained was a brisk, efficient mask.

The walls of her cubicle had been made opaque. No one could observe their conversation. Only, he thought, a passing telepath might pick up something. But they had learned to live with that.

‘Did you get the four MPs?’ he asked Miss Plow.

‘They have her in the next room. She bit one of them.’

‘What did he do in return?’

‘He slapped her halfway across the room, and that seemed to bring her out of it. She was – well, actually, not metaphorically a wild animal. As if she thought she was going to be snuffed.’

‘I’ll go talk with her,’ he said, and passed on through the cubicle into the next room.

There she stood, her eyes screaming hatred and fear, like a trapped raptor – hawk eyes, he thought, which you better never look into. I learned that early, he reflected; don’t look into the eyes of a hawk or an eagle. Because you won’t be able to forget the hate that you saw…and the passionate, insatiable need to be free, the need to fly. And oh, those great heights. Those dreadful drops on the prey; panic-stricken rabbit: that’s the rest of us. Funny image: an eagle held prisoner by four rabbits.