John Rackham (2 page)

Bragan cleared his throat, readied his tongue
for the unfamiliar sounds of the language, and said: "This is Zorgan.
Hear me, Tarat, and anyone else who may be listening. This is Denzil Bragan,
Supreme Executive of the Zorgan Fleet now on Scarta. The object yoti saw was a
vessel, a ship from space. Unit One of our fleet. Zorgan has taken your city of
Stopa. Other ships of Zorgan have taken your other major cities all over your world.
I call on all of you to surrender."

"Surrender?" The female voice from
Tarat repeated the

Scartan
word as if she had never heard it before. Then, abruptly: "If we
refuse?"

Bragan scowled at the instrument in his hand.
That, he thought, was a very fast reaction. No time wasted in doubt or
recrimination, or even shock and surprise. Straight through to the key point.

"That would be foolish. You have no
choice. I repeat, we hold Stopa. We have and hold the power and water supplies,
the food stocks, the radio station, and the transport center. We hold prisoner
almost all the city's leading citizens and people in authority. Also many women
and children. As I speak, they are safely held. Unless you surrender,
everyone, they will be killed." He made no attempt to soften the harsh
words, but waited a breath for them to sink home, then added: "I give you
one day. Until sunrise again, tomorrow."

Tarat was silent for as long as he could have
counted five slowly, then the female voice declared, flat and positive: "We
will not surrender!" And there was a single chime, and then silence.

"She
hung up." Bragan pushed the microphone away and frowned at it, shaking his
head. "Whoever she was, she made up her mind fast. Too fast. If they all
think that rapidly we could be in for a shock or two."

"They are going to need something more
than fast reaction-time to bother us!" Swann snorted. "Take a look
at the board. Effective resistance, nil. One or two have needed an extra whiff
of gas, or a mild stun-bolt to make them behave, but that's all. Not a weapon
among them!"

"Ill
go with that." Karsh nodded. "Mind you, there are queer features to
it, but the whole planet is queer in some ways." He furrowed his square
hard-planed face and scratched his jaw as he went on: "You take that
gas-power setup they have. Fully automated on a feedback principle against use.
It's hydrogen. Simple enough to make. They pump it to individual fuel-cells all
over the city, so every block and street, every big building, has all the
electricity it could ever need. It's safe, and clean, and efficient. And yet
this is an agrarian economy! They have technology and don't use it. They have
radio. And air transport. And yet they're almost all farmers! And look at this
city! With that kind of technology and resources it should be huge. But it's
little more than a village. Less than a million people. And no police, no
military, no weapons, nothing! I don't get it."

"Why
grumble?" Swann grinned. "Makes it all the easier for us, doesn't it?
We have them by the throat already. When the rest of them wake up from the gas,
they'll know it, but by then we'll have them nailed down so tight it will hurt
It's a breeze!"

"It is an operation," Bragan
reminded them coldly. "Karsh is right to be anxious. What we can't explain
we can't predict. It is not so much the fact that they are agrarian. That is a
puzzle, not a problem. They have obviously chosen to keep their technological
development within bounds. It can be done. It is not an inevitable process that
automation and cybernation must dominate to the exclusion of all else, but a
matter of choice. We could have made the same decision, once. What must concern
us is why they so chose. And that is a matter of understanding them as a
people. We already know this much, that they think and react extremely quickly.
That woman of Tarat—it is that little village there, about forty miles north of
the city—she heard and understood me instantly. And she stated, with barely
time to think, *We will not surrender.' Brief and to the point."

"She
doesn't know the score yet," Swann scoffed. "None of them do."

"No?
I thought I explained it adequately. Very well, think of this point, then. They
have no space-flight technology whatever; we know that much. Yet she spoke of
an object descending, estimated its destination and remarked that there was no
impact. I told her that we were from space, were alien. And she accepted it
without bothering to comment. Think what you like, I tell you that is a
fantastically unorthodox reaction, in these circumstances!"

"All
right." Swann shrugged. "Karsh said it for you. They're queer. But we
still have them by the throat, and come nightfall they'll know it, and they
will sing a different tune."

Over
the next few hours a steady stream of reports came in to back up Swann's
optimism. All the pre-planned objectives were taken and their key personnel,
where present, were secured and bound against the time when the sleepgas wore
off. From cues and clues, pictures and documents, many citizens of authority
had been taken, identified, and held. The radio station was now transmitting at
regular intervals a slightly expanded version of the speech Bragan had made.
There could be little doubt that the grim message was now covering the entire
planet. But there was no detectable reply of any kind.

"Thinking it over," Karsh guessed.
"A thing like this takes time to sink in."

Bragan didn't agree, but he kept his doubts
silent. To him the flat contradiction did not make sense. Lightning-fast reactions
one time, drawn-out delay the next; that just didn't add up. He preferred to
think that the Scartanni were hatching something. He wondered what? And how, if
they were maintaining radio-silence, could they possibly coordinate their
effort, whatever it was? He wasn't apprehensive, just curious. There was an
itch at the back of his mind that he couldn't scratch, a conviction that
somewhere amid the mass of data was a fact, or several facts, which, if
shuffled into the proper pattern, would provide a clue to the mystery. He felt
it. He didn't strain at it. It was one of those things the subconscious could
handle far better than any amount of conscious effort. He would just have to
wait.

II

T
he
S
cabtan sun
had climbed high and was standing almost at
noon when the first cracks in the serene perfection of the operation began to
show. The overseeing triad were still at their posts, but had relaxed enough to
take a scratch meal, and were now listening to the sporadic reports coming in
to Unit One's operational control. They heard the appeal come in from a squad
working the northwest boundary of the city.

"Squad-leader
Four-B, mopping up as instructed"—the voice sounded good and
irritable—"area Northwest Six, close to hospital, approximately three
miles the far side of it. We are stuck with a complex of buildings,
semi-isolated and seemingly related to each other, yielding high-power energy
readings all over the dial. Two men hit and out of action with what looks to be
severe burns from some kind of beaming device. Could be laser. Need a back-up
and advice." There was a moment of flurry as acknowledgments and instructions
whipcracked to and fro, and assistance was redeployed. Karsh sat up, hoisted
an eyebrow.

"That
sounds like some kind of laboratory, or research outfit."

"The wonder is," Bragan murmured,
"that we haven't struck one sooner. There must be several. Technology
doesn't just happen."

Swann's reflex grin grew hard edges.
"So—they can hit back when they have a mind to. I wonder how they came to
miss the gasr^

"Could
be any one of a dozen ways," Karsh hazarded. "If it is a research
outfit they'd have protective clothing, masks against fumes and acid vapors,
probably air-conditioned chambers. And so on. Point is, we need to know just
what they have there. Pass the word to your side not to smash up that plant any
more than they have to."

"Just
like that?" Swann sneered. "How would you feel out there, knowing
some gook is trying to bum out your guts, and head-office says treat 'em
gently? Gentlyl We're lad-gloving them as it isl"

Before
Karsh could snarl back a retort another thickly-disgusted voice growled for
attention.

"Squad-leader
Eleven-A, section West, three miles up-river from the last bridge. We have
turned up something that looks like a heavy engineering plant. The Scarts are
throwing things at us in quantity. Steel rods, solid slugs, small canisters
with explosive charges, stuff like that. Standoff. We can't get closer without
getting rough. Advise!"

The
triad hushed to listen to the prompt instructions. "Etay on the ground.
Employ all available cover. Try gas and smoke screens. Am sending Eleven-B,
Nine-A, Nine-B to reinforce. Set stunners to maximum. Power stepped up this
end. Do not demolish or incendiarize unless absolutely necessary."

Swann
made a sour face and squinted at Bragan. "Making your point for you,"
he muttered. "For a people with no record of war or weapons, they catch on
real quick. What the hell kind of weapons throw solid slugsP"

"Old stuff!" Karsh told him
promptly. "Primitive, but effective. The logical extension to heaving
rocks with the muscles. All sorts of ways of doing it, especially if that
is
an engineering shop. Gas-expansion devices such as steam, compressed air
or explosive chemical mixtures, even hydraulics. Or they could be using
springs. Centrifugal force, even. A good engineer could dream up a dozen
offhand. And they'll have oxygen on tap, to counteract the gas. Also protective
clothing. But so what? Wait until they stop a full-voltage stun-bolt or two.
Then you'll hear them holler. We have plenty in reserve yet." He glanced
up and back to
a
master-dial set :n the wall, and Bragan
followed his gaze.

On
that dial a slim black needle swung to indicate the total quantity of power
being beamed out from the ship to all the trooper-armament out there. Power for
stun-guns, for beamer-bumers, for armor-lift-and-assist servo-motors, for jet-jumpers.
Gross quantities of power going out by microwave, yet it was only a fraction of
the quantity available, of the raw power that the ship was receiving by a
similar microwave link from high above. Anchored up there, one to each of
those glowing rock-and-dust aggregates, were three big collector dishes, each
one drinking in power from the planet
's
primary,
and beaming it down to the invading ships on the surface.

Zoigan
thought of everything, Bragan mused. That dial back there had figure symbols
climbing by powers of ten, and the needle, at this moment, had moved barely the
first fifth of its sweep. Moreover, had this been a full-scale Zorgan
operation, mounted against a known opposition likely to prove obstinate, there
would have been a hundred times the back-up. Multiples of collector dishes,
ranks and relays
of
troop-carriers and heavy weapons, huge
monitors and parent-ships, with troops and weapons and resources gross enough
to smash any opposition, even to split the planet if necessary. In this case,
against one peaceful unarmed planet, they had enough and to spare.

The
day dragged on to the accompaniment of sporadic reports and the irregular
chatter of the systems-analyzer computer as it put up the pattern of conquest
for everyone to see. But those two trouble-spots continued to hold on doggedly.
Swann kept his attention on them, itching to advise but not wanting to
interfere unless called on. And Bragan kept a covert, uneasy watch on Swann. He
had no question about the man's abilities. Swann was brilliant in his field, or
else he would not have made the grade this far. But he had a tendency to get
passionately and emotionally involved in the action. And, for this operation,
that was not a good thing to do. This was more a time for being withdrawn and
impersonal, for concentrating on making the operation work like the machine it
was. Like Karsh, for example.

The technology expert had his problems, but
he was handling them in the approved manner. A sub-headquarters was being
established in the Stopan City Hall. Squads reported they had captured the
senior landholder and seven lesser landholders, who, between them, owned
virtually all the ground the city stood on. There was also a swarm of other
involved people, mostly staff and assistants. And more than a hundred women and
children. Reports and recommendations flashed back and forth in a steady
stream. The hostages were being brought out of the gas by twos and threes, for
questioning. But there was a growing dilemma. The sub-headquarters senior officer
reported back, sounding thoroughly frustrated.

"They
are a stiffnecked bunch of beggars. All of them! We give them the situation as
it stands. And they understand us perfectly, no doubt about that. They
say
so, dammit! But beyond that, no comment. They just clam up!"