The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (43 page)

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Authors: Vernor Vinge

BOOK: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
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He had studied naval types of the Twentieth Century quite thoroughly back home, and in many ways the
Fearsome
was a familiar craft. But there were differences. The Ontarian construction had a faintly crude, misshapen appearance. Standardized production techniques were only beginning to appear in the Confederacy. And without petroleum resources or coal, the nations of New Canada were forced to use vegetable oils or wood to fire their boilers—the greasy black smoke that spouted from the
Fearsome’
s stacks was enough to cause a queasy stomach even if his inner ear and the rolling sea were not. The ship had a huge crew. Apparently its auxiliary devices were not connected to the central power plant. Even the big deck guns needed work squads to turn and angle them. In a sense the
Fearsome
was a cross between a Roman galley and a 1910 battleship.
So far Chente’s jury-rigged plans had gone much more smoothly than he had dared to hope. At Balquirth’s direction, Colonel Maclen had shown him the maximum security storage bunker where Ontario’s five nuclear weapons were located. Only one was needed for this mission, but the Earthman had been allowed to check the missiles’ drive units in making his selection. Apparently, neither Maclen or Balquirth realized that a simple adjustment of the drive unit could render the bomb itself permanently unusable. It had taken Chente only a moment to so adjust four of the five weapons.
Now the hastily formed Ontarian fleet was under full steam, with the bomb launch less than an hour away. In addition to the
Fearsome
, the fleet contained the battleship
Covenant
and two large cruisers—essentially as protection for that one bomb. When they were within missile range of the Providencians the Ontarian fleet would turn away, and Balquirth and Chente would take the bomb aboard the motorized boat which now sat near the
Fearsome’
s stern. Not until then would Chente be allowed to touch the bomb’s trigger.
Chente looked down at Martha, who sat beside him on the bridge, gazing fixedly out at the ocean. Her wrists had been manacled, but when the sea got choppy, Admiral Trudeau had removed the cuffs so that she could more easily keep her balance. She had not spoken a single word for the last three hours, had seemed almost like a disinterested spectator. Chente touched her shoulder, but she continued to ignore him.
The starboard hatch opened and Balquirth, dressed now in utility coveralls and a slicker, stepped onto the bridge. He spoke briefly with Trudeau, then approached the Earthman. “We’ve got problems, Freeman. This storm has kicked up a bit faster than the weather people
predicted. We can’t spot our fleet on the display, and the New Providencian force will be under cloud cover in another fifteen minutes.”
Chente shrugged, and the gesture brought a sharp pain to his side. “No matter. That satellite we’re reading from was also intended for navigation. It’s got radar powerful enough to scan the ocean. We’ll be able to keep track of the other fleet almost as easily as if there were no storm at all.”
“Ah, good. Let’s go below and take a look at the display, then. You said we could launch the missile from twenty-five kilometers out?”
“That’s the effective range. Actually the bomb’s drive unit could push it much farther, but it wasn’t designed as a weapon, so it would be terrifically inaccurate at greater ranges.”
CHENTE AND BALQUIRTH LEFT THE BRIDGE AND WENT CAREFULLY DOWN THE steep ladderway to the charthouse. The sky was completely overcast now, and a gathering squall obscured the horizon. He could barely make out the forms of the escort craft, far off to the side. The hard cold wind that sleeted across the
Fearsome
presaged the storm’s arrival.
The charthouse was hidden from the direct blast of the wind by several armored buttresses and a gun turret. Five armed seamen stood at the entrance; once they recognized Balquirth, there was no trouble getting inside. The charthouse itself was well insulated from the outside, as the instruments it housed required better care than men did. Balquirth had had all of Chente’s equipment stowed here, along with the communications bomb, a two-meter-long cylinder of black plastic that rested in a case of native velvet near the cabin’s interior bulkhead.
Maclen sat beside some bulky and primitive wireless equipment. The young colonel held a repeating slug gun at the ready position. He was the room’s only occupant. Apparently Pier trusted only his top aides with this Pandora’s box of Earthly artifacts.
“All secure, sir,” Maclen said. “I let the navigator take some charts but no one else has been by.”
“Very good, Colonel,” said Balquirth. “All right, Freeman, it’s all yours.”
Chente approached the brass chart table and the satellite receiver. He fiddled briefly with the controls, and the screen turned gray. A tiny point of light moved slowly from left to right across the top of the screen, then returned to the left margin and started across again. “That’s the scanning trace from the satellite. It’s illuminating a square kilometer as it moves across the ocean. The satellite’s maser isn’t powerful enough to light up a larger area, so the picture must be built up from a sequence of scans.” The tiny blip of light shifted down about a millimeter with
each scan, but still nothing showed in its track. Finally two golden blips appeared, and in the scan below that, another blip.
“The Providencians,” Balquirth said, almost to himself.
Chente nodded. “At this resolution, it’s difficult to see individual ships, but you get the idea of their formation.”
“What’s that red blip?” Bossman Pier pointed to the newest apparition.
“That must be a transponder on one of the Providencian bombs. All the communications bombs transmit a uhf signal in response to microwave from the satellite. I suppose that originally the gimmick was used to find dud bombs that fell back to the surface without detonating.”
“So they really thought they were going to wipe us out,” said Pier. “This is even better than I had hoped.”
The scanning dot moved relentlessly across the screen, shifting down with each pass to reveal more and more of the Providencian fleet. Finally they could see the echelon structure of the enemy forces. For ten more scans, no new blips appeared. Then a single red blip showed up far south of the enemy fleet. Chente caught his breath.
Balquirth looked across the table at him. “How far is that bomb from us?” he said quietly.
Chente held up his hand, and watched the scanning dot continue across the screen. He remembered Martha’s remarks about the Providencians having special delivery systems. Then the scanning dot showed the leading elements of the Ontarian fleet—just six lines below the red dot. “Less than ten kilometers, Bossman.”
Balquirth didn’t reply. He looked at the display’s key, then rattled off some instructions into a speaking tube. General quarters sounded. Seconds later Chente heard the
Fearsome’
s big deck guns fire.
Finally Balquirth spoke to Chente. His voice was calm, almost as if their peril were someone else’s. “How do you suppose they detected our fleet?”
“There are a number of ways. Martha said the Providencians were experimenting with a lot of gadgets of their own design. In fact they may not have detected us. That bomb is probably aboard a small, unmanned boat. They may just keep it thirty or forty kilometers ahead of their fleet. Then if it hears the sounds of propellers nearby it detonates.”
“Ah, yes. Research and development—isn’t it wonderful.”
THEY STOOD WAITING IN SILENCE. TEN KILOMETERS AWAY, A BARRAGE OF heavy artillery was arcing down on the cause of that innocuous red blip. Any second now they would discover just how cleverly the New Providencians had designed their delivery system.
From outside the windowless charthouse came screams. No other sounds, just screams. Chente smelled fire, noticed the insulation around the closed hatch was beginning to smoke. He and Balquirth hit the deck, and Maclen was not far behind. The bomb’s searing flash had crossed the ten kilometers separating them at the speed of light, but they would have to wait almost seven seconds for the water-borne shock wave to arrive.
Chente heard a monstrously loud ripping sound, felt the deck smash into his chest and head. He was not conscious when the airborne shock wave did its job, peeling back the charthouse bulkhead and part of the deck above them.
Chente woke with rain in his face, and the muffled sound of exploding ammunition and burning fuel all around. Behind all these sounds, and nearly as insistent, was a steady roar—the last direct evidence of the nuclear explosion.
The Earthman rolled over, cursing as he felt the stitches the Ontarian doctors had put in his side come apart. His head rang, his nose was bleeding, and his ears felt stuffed with cotton. But as he shook the rain out of his eyes he saw that the others in the charthouse had not fared so well. On the other side of the cabin, Maclen’s body was sprawled, headless. Nearer, Balquirth lay unmoving, a pool of blood spreading from his mouth.
For a few moments Chente sat looking stupidly at the scene, wondering why he was alive. Then he began to think. His plans to destroy the Providencian bombs were ruined now that the Ontarian fleet had been destroyed. Or were they? Suddenly he realized that this turn of events might give him hope of completing his mission and still escaping both groups. Chente struggled to his feet, and noticed the deck was listing—or was it only his sense of balance gone awry again? He recovered the recon display and his pistol, then picked the communications bomb from its case. The bomb didn’t mass more than fifteen kilograms, but it was an awkward burden.
Outside the charthouse the mutilated guards’ bodies lay amid twisted metal. The ship’s paint was scorched and curling even in the rain. The after part of the ship was swallowed by flame, and the few people he saw alive were too busy to notice him.
Martha.
The thought brought him up short, and he reconsidered the possibilities. Then he turned and started toward the bridge. He could see the gaping holes where the glass had been blown out of the bridge’s ports. Anybody standing by those ports would be dead now.
Then he saw her, crawling along the gangway above. The deck listed a full ten degrees as he pulled himself up a ladderway to reach her.
“Let’s get off this thing!” he shouted over the explosions and the fire. He caught her arm and helped her to her feet.
“What—?” She shook her head. A trickle of blood ran from one ear down her neck. Her face was smeared with grime and blood.
He could barely hear her voice, and realized the explosion must have deafened them all. He held onto her and shouted again into her good ear. For a moment she relaxed against him, then pulled back, and he saw her lips mouth: “Not with … traitor!”
“But I was never going to use that bomb on your people. It was just a trick to get at the Ontarian bombs.” It was the biggest lie he’d told her yet, but he knew she wanted to believe it.
He pointed toward the
Fearsome’
s stern, and shouted, “To the launch!” She nodded and they staggered across the tilting, twisted deck, toward the flames and the sound of explosions. Everyone they met was going in the opposite direction, and seemed in no mood to stop and talk.
NOW THERE WAS ONLY ONE NARROW PATH FREE OF FLAMES AND THE HEAT from either side was so intense it blistered their skin even as they ran through it. Then they were beyond the flames, on the relatively undamaged stern. Chente saw that the motor launch had been torn loose from its after mooring cable, and now its stern hung down, splashing crazily in the water. Several bodies lay unmoving on the scorched deck, but no one else was visible. They crawled down to where the bow of the launch stuck up over the railing. Chente had almost concluded they were alone on the stern, when Balquirth stepped from behind the wreckage next to the launch’s moorings.
The Ontarian swayed drunkenly, one hand grasping the jagged and twisted metal for support. His other hand held a slug gun. The lower part of his face was covered with blood. Chente staggered toward him, and shouted, “Thought you were dead. We’re going ahead with your plan.”
Through the blood, Pier almost seemed to smile. He gestured at Martha. “No … Quintero,” his voice came faintly over the sounds of rain and fire, “ … think you’ve turned your coat …”
He raised the pistol, but Chente was close to him now. The Earthman lunged, knocking the gun aside with his bomb, and drove his fist hard into Pier’s stomach. The other crumpled. Chente staggered back, clinging to the rail for support. It struck him that the fight must have looked like a contest between drunks.
He turned to Martha, and waved at the launch. “We’ll have to jump for it, before that other cable breaks.”
She nodded, her face pale with cold and fear. They were cut off from
the rest of the ship by the spreading fire, and even as he spoke the
Fearsome
tilted another five or ten degrees. He climbed over the rail and jumped. The drop was only three meters, but his target was moving and he was holding the bomb. He hit hard on his bad side and rolled down the launch’s steeply sloping deck.
Gasping for breath he dragged himself back up the deck and waved to Martha above him. She stood motionless, her fists tightly clenched about the railing. For a moment, Chente thought she would balk, but she slipped over the railing and jumped, her arms outstretched. He managed to break her fall and they both went sprawling. They crawled clumsily down the bobbing deck toward the craft’s cockpit. Martha struggled through the tiny hatch, and Chente pushed the bomb after her. Then he turned and fired at the remaining mooring cable.

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