THE HELMSMAN: Director's Cut Edition (21 page)

Ah! There, low in the left-hand quadrant of the center console, his eye caught a primitive sort of phase converter: Regulating mechanism for just about every pulse limiter he'd ever seen. Of course, the ones in his experience were
also
installed on heavy mining equipment, and
never
set at more than half conductance. This one indicated at least a full three-quarters, even a little more. He grimaced. He knew he could fine-tune the device by thumbing a notched wheel under its mounting, but if he set the converter
too
high, it could severely spike the defraction transmitter when that device came on line, and then he'd never get it started. He could also get a runaway power plant, he remembered with a shudder, and decided to leave everything set as it was for the time being.

He narrowed his eyes. To the left of the converter, he recognized a strange-looking resonance-choke readout, which indicated a pulse average of zero. Probably all right, as he recalled; these units ran with
really
low pulse pressure. But if the reading slid into negative values, he knew he would have to consider dumping the C
_L-2
pressure to start all over again — and he didn't have time for anything like that. Then he noticed the choke was switched to “off.”
That
explained zero pressure at the readout, but didn't do much to relieve his growing sense of apprehension.

“Lieutenant,” a voice called out, breaking into his concentration, “we've got 'em all running now.”

Brim looked up to see Fragonard's face peek over the door coming from the boarding ladder. He checked the other seven machines; each was blazing with unnecessary lights. Happily, nothing untoward seemed to have resulted from punching the big red power buttons. “No problems?” he asked.

“None, sir,” Fragonard declared.

“Good,” Brim said offhandedly, “because the next thing you'll have to do is teach those same people how to run them.”

“How to
run
'em, sir?”

“Not to worry, Fragonard,” Brim chuckled darkly. “It isn't clear I shall ever discover anything to tell
you
about the subject. “

“Sir?”

“Nothing,” Brim said as he got up to stretch. “But you'd better get our friend Barbousse up here with us. We'll all three of us see if we can't learn how this fool thing operates — together. “

“Aye, sir,” Fragonard said scrambling back down the ladder. He presently returned with Barbousse in tow, and the two were soon breathing over Brim's shoulder, watching every move.

As he scanned the readouts, Brim brought himself up short, peering at the resonance chokes in utter disbelief. The
thrice
-xaxtdamned zero reading! He snapped his fingers in angry comprehension. Somewhere in the system, a heavy-duty demodulator kept the whole radiation mechanism safe. And chances were that if the resonance choke was off, so was that demodulator! He felt sweat beading on his forehead. The whole subsystem might already be far beyond the limits of safety. He frantically scanned his readouts searching for…
There
! He breathed a sigh of relief. He found it, and it was on.

He glanced nervously at the C
_L-2
intensity. Universe! Now
that
was all the way up to fourteen hundred. He ground his teeth, doing a desperate conversion from milli-ROGEN to something he could work with. Then he shook his head and relaxed. Certainly. Fourteen hundred milli-ROGEN was all right in
this
sort of system (it had no local storage capacity). In fact, the reading was just a hair
under
normal.

Getting a firmer grip on himself, he watched the C
_L-2
climb into the operational range, then switched the choke to “on” and squinted tensely at the readout. It was just beginning to register. Presently, a great plume of vapor sighed from the cooling mechanism behind the cabin and the gravity-defraction transmitter came on line. The big vehicle automatically righted, lifting smoothly to about eight irals above the ground, where it hovered quietly, at last on an even keel.

“That's the way, Lieutenant!” Barbousse cheered in an awestruck voice.

Brim could hear more cheering from the ground. He leaned his head against the chair's high back for a moment and took a deep breath. He really
had
started the xaztdamned thing. “All right, Barbousse, Fragonard,” he said. “You were both watching. Think you can show the others how to do that?”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant,” Barbousse declared immediately.

“I think I could, too,” Fragonard said after frowning once more at the control panel.

“You only
think
you could?” Brim asked pointedly.

“No, sir,” Fragonard declared with a grin. “I
could.”

“That's better,” Brim said, grinning at the two ratings. “Get hopping, then, both of you. You've seven more to fire up while I try to get this oversized ore hauler
moving
next.” Walking to the hatch, he listened to the deep, steady growl coming through the logic lenses from the gravity-refraction transmitter, then peered down at the small crowd of ratings gathered below. “Stand clear, down there,” he yelled, then made his way back to the front of the cab and took his seat at the controls.

Buckling himself firmly to the seat, he looked at the pulse limiter and shook his head. Its setting of three-quarters conductance was simply too high. The thumb wheel, however, was mounted in an incredibly awkward place, and he found himself hard pressed to move it. Eventually, he prevailed (with a few skinned knuckles) and changed the reading to fifty percent. Next he gingerly reached out and opened the phase converter itself, gating raw energy into the pulse limiter. The machine sounds behind him changed subtly, becoming deeper and more damped as he listened. He bit his lip nervously, considering everything he had done. So far, it all checked: C
_L-2
intensity normal (a
little
on the high side, but not enough to worry about), phase converter at “open” and set to approximately fifty percent, cooling on, gyros lighted, hull trimmed level. He checked the ground in front of him. It was clear. His previous audience of spectators had mostly disappeared, but here and there he caught a face peering out from behind the protection of a tree or a large rock.

He laughed. He certainly couldn't blame anybody for
that!
Shrugging, he acknowledged the vehicle was as ready as he could make it, and retarded the pulse limiter. The sounds in the power compartment increased precipitately, and the big machine began to vibrate. But nothing else happened.

Brim frowned, opening the pulse limiter still farther. Now a great, discordant roar came from the shuddering traction machinery, but he was
moving,
albeit in palsied jerks and hops. Trouble was, the movement was nowhere
near
what it ought to be, considering the tremendous power he was gating to the deflection transmitter. He opened the pulse limiter a little farther still, and his forward progress did improve, but the increased speed was accompanied by intolerable levels of roaring from the traction machinery plus an alarming cycle of repetitive shuddering now coming from beneath his feet. Outside, the few stragglers who persisted in watching the big vehicle move were running panic-stricken for the nearest shelter. Behind him, a huge cloud of steam was blasting from the cooling unit as brightly glowing fins stripped vapor from A'zurn's moist air. The cabin air was blue with the acrid smell of red-hot metal.

Suddenly, he pounded his fist on the instrument panel. The thrust sink! That's what was doing it. On its highest setting, it was recycling
all
the energy back to the coolers. No wonder the traction machinery was tearing itself to pieces. He grabbed at the slide, then bit his lip. “Easy, Brim!” he yelled as he moved it gently to the center of its slot.

The rasping noise faded immediately, although the cooling system continued to race. Brim suspected it would continue to do that for quite awhile to come.

The big field piece was picking up speed smartly now. Tentatively, he pushed the left rudder pedal. The vehicle lumbered off clumsily in that direction but steered well enough to provide at least a modicum of control. It wasn't built for much manual steering anyway — only enough to maneuver to and from the ubiquitous cableways installed wherever the League held sway. Near anyone of these, automatic devices in the hull of the field piece could take over and “follow the wire,” as the expression went. Typical, he considered, of a civilization that discouraged any sort of free thinking outside a small ruling class. He could see the thick cable he would soon follow himself disappear around the trees at the far end of the field.

Those trees! For some reason, he was
still
picking up speed — a lot of it. Already he was running a great deal faster than he should if he were to negotiate a turnaround. He had to stop the big machine. And soon!

Frantically, he smashed the thrust-sink slide back to the top of its slot; the rasping noise resumed immediately, along with the shuddering, which quickly turned into a bone-jarring series of grinding jolts. Everything loose in the control cabin cascaded to the deck, where it added its own distinctive clatter to the rattling of every plate in the hull.

And that hadn't stopped it!
If anything, he was moving even faster toward the trees, which now looked like a green wall of solid stone. What had gone wrong?

In something closely related to panic, Brim suddenly realized his latest mistake: The thumb wheel on the phase converter. It was supposed to
retard
energy flow instead of increase it, so when he'd changed the setting from three-quarters (retardation!) to one-half, he'd actually
doubled
the device's output. No wonder the thrust sink wouldn't do its job! In horror, he visualized the big machine smashing itself farther and farther into the thick forest ahead until one of the trees was simply too big. He shuddered. In sudden desperation, he awkwardly jammed his fingers onto the little wheel and painfully moved it back close to its original position.

Immediately, his speed began to drop, along with the shuddering rasp from aft — but far too late to do much about the trees. With a shattering crash, the big machine plowed through the edge of the forest, snapping tree trunks like twigs and throwing splintered logs a hundred irals in the air. The cab ricocheted back and forth like a starship caught in the great-grandfather of all space holes as he stood on the port rudder pedal. Ahead, through the armored glass, he watched a monster tree that seemed to have deliberately moved in his way.
This was it
! He braced himself for the crash just as the runaway vehicle smashed over a half-buried boulder, swerved crazily, then wobbled level again — miraculously turned around the other way — and stopped at last against a sapling no thicker than his forearm.

He sat for a number of cycles in the smell of crushed vegetation, listening to more distant artillery, the angry cries of disturbed birds, and the rattling polyphony of cooling metal behind him. Then he returned to the controls and carefully retraced his well-marked route back to the sunlight.

By the time he reached the forest's edge, his steaming, branch-strewn vehicle was traveling at a normal rate of speed under positive control for the first time since he entered the cab. Brim could feel himself blush as he brought the big vehicle to a stop beside a cheering crowd of ratings. Some days, it simply didn't pay to get out of one's bunk.

Ten cycles before Brim's scheduled departure, all the mobile field pieces were finally operational, their fledgling crews making the most of a few moments' practice. The field was alive with rumbling, steam-breathing machines that staggered drunkenly over the smashed grass in a scene filled with resounding collisions and general confusion. Red-faced and very much out of breath, Barbousse and Fragonard both returned on foot, grumbling they were hard pressed merely to stay alive amid the roaring mayhem outside.

Now, with Fragonard safely ensconced in the turret, Barbousse reactivated the COMM, and within a short time a display globe materialized the wobbly image of Colonel Hagbut.

“
Well
?” the flush-faced officer demanded. “Are you ready to move out?”

Brim glanced at the clattering disorder outside, gulped, and nodded his head. “Absolutely, Colonel,” he declared, thankful the Army officer was not privy to the same view of the field. In truth, he rationalized, the Blue Capes
were
probably as ready as they ever would be.

“That's
better
, Brim,” Hagbut barked. “We may make a proper soldier of you yet.”

Brim uttered a silent oath about
that.

“In precisely eight cycles,” the Colonel continued, “you will lead your field pieces onto the wire at the end of your field and proceed at speed point zero three. That will put you in position to switch onto my cable — behind the personnel carriers — five cycles later.
Do you understand
?”

“Aye, Colonel,” Brim said.

“That's 'Yes, Colonel,'“ Hagbut corrected. “On
land
, we do not 'aye'
anything.”
.

“I understand, Colonel,” Brim said through gritted teeth.

“That's better, young man.” Abruptly, Hagbut frowned and peered directly in Brim's face.
''Of course,”
he exclaimed in sudden recognition. “You're that Carescrian they let into the Fleet, aren't you?”

“I am a Carescrian, yes,” Brim said stiffly.

“Universe,” Hagbut said. “That explains a lot. Well, do the best you can, then. I'm sure you can't help what you are.”

Brim felt his face flush — at the same time he
also
felt a massive grip on his forearm, well beyond the console's video pickup.

“Stand easy, Lieutenant,” Barbousse's voice whispered. “Don't let the cod'dlinger make you throw it all away!”

Brim clenched his fists. “Very good, sir,” he spit through his teeth, but the COMM globe had, as usual, already gone out.