Chapter Sixteen

The trail behind this rapid succession of new developments was by this time littered with the abandoned carcasses of dead ideas. It reminded the scientists forcibly of the pitfalls that await the unwary when speculation is given too free a rein and imagination is allowed to float farther and farther aloft from the firm grounds of demonstrable proof and scientific rigor. The reaction against this tendency took the form of a generally cooler reception to Danchekker's attempted abrupt wrapping up of the whole issue than might have been expected. So many blind alleys had been exhausted by now, that any new suggestion met with instinctive skepticism and demands for corroboration.

The discovery of early terrestrial animals on the Ganymean spaceship proved only one thing conclusively: that there were early terrestrial animals on the Ganymean spaceship. It didn't prove beyond doubt that other consignments had reached Minerva safely, or indeed, that this particular consignment was ever intended for Minerva. For one thing, Jupiter seemed a strange place to find a ship that had been bound for Minerva from Earth. All it proved, therefore, was that this consignment hadn't got to wherever it was supposed to go.

Danchekker's conclusions regarding the origins of the Ganymeans, however, were fully endorsed by a committee of experts on comparative anatomy in London, who confirmed the affinity between the Ganymean skeleton and the Minervan fish. The corollary to this deduction—that the Lunarians too had evolved on Minerva from displaced terrestrial stock—although neatly accounting for the absence of Lunarian traces on Earth and for the evident lack of advanced Lunarian space technology, required a lot more in the way of substantiating evidence.

In the meantime, Linguistics had been busy applying their newfound knowledge from the microdot library to the last unsolved riddle among Charlie's papers, the notebook containing the handwritten entries. The story that emerged provided vivid confirmation of the broad picture already deduced in cold and objective terms by Hunt and Steinfield; it was an account of the last days of Charlie's life. The revelations from the book lobbed yet another intellectual grenade in among the already disarrayed ranks of the investigators. But it was Hunt who finally pulled the pin.

*

Clasping a folder of loose papers beneath his arm, Hunt strolled along the main corridor of the thirteenth floor of the Navcomms Headquarters building, toward the linguistics section. Outside Don Maddson's office he stopped to examine with curiosity a sign bearing a string of two-inch-high Lunarian characters that had been pinned to the door. Shrugging and shaking his head, he entered the room. Inside, Maddson and one of his assistants were sitting in front of the perpetual pile of litter on the large side table away from the desk. Hunt pulled up a chair and joined them.

"You've been through the translations," Maddson observed, noting the contents of the folder as Hunt began arranging them on the table.

Hunt nodded. "Very interesting, this. There are a few points I'd like to go over just to make sure I've got it straight. Some parts just don't made sense."

"We should've guessed," Maddson sighed resignedly. "Okay, shoot."

"Let's work through the entries in sequence," Hunt suggested. "I'll stop when we get to the odd bits. By the way . . ." He inclined his head in the direction of the door. "What's the funny sign outside?"

Maddson grinned proudly. "It's my name in Lunarian. Literally it means Scholar Crazy-Boy. Get it? Don Mad-Son. See?"

"Oh, Christ," Hunt groaned. He returned his attention to the papers.

"You've expressed the Lunarian-dated entries simply as consecutive numbers starting at Day One, but subdivisions of their day are converted into our hours."

"Check," Maddson confirmed. "Also, where there's doubt about the accuracy of the translation, the phrase is put in parentheses with a question mark. That helps keep things simple."

Hunt selected his first sheet. "Okay," he said. "Let's start at the beginning." He read aloud:

"Day One. As expected, today we received full (mobilization alert?) orders. Probably means a posting somewhere. Koriel . . . This is Charlie's pal who turns up later, isn't it?"

"Correct."

". . . thinks it could be to one of the (ice nests far-intercept?). What's that?"

"That's an awkward one," Maddson replied. "It's a composite word; that's the literal translation. We think it could refer to a missile battery forming part of an outer defense perimeter, located out on the ice sheets."

"Mmm—sounds reasonable. Anyhow, Hope so. It would be a change to get away from the monotony of this place. Bigger food ration in (ice-field combat zones?). Now . . ." Hunt looked up. "He says, 'the monotony of this place.' How sure are we that we know where 'this place' is?"

"Pretty sure," Maddson replied with a firm nod. "The name of a town is written above the date at the top of the entry. It checks with the name of a coastal town on Cerios and also with the place given in his pay book for his last posting but one."

"So you're sure he was on Minerva when he wrote this?"

"Sure, we're sure."

"Okay. I'll skip the next bit that talks about personal thoughts.

"Day Two. Koriel's hunches have proved wrong for once. We're going to Luna."

Hunt looked up again, evidently considering this part important. "How do you know he means Earth's Moon there?"

"Well, one reason is that the word he uses there is the same as the last place the pay book says he was posted to. We guess it means Luna because that's where we found him. Another reason is that later on, as you'll have read, he talks about being sent specifically to a base called Seltar. Now, we've found a reference among some of the things turned up on Farside to a list of bases on place 'X,' and the name Seltar appears on the list. X is the same word that is written in the pay book and in the entry you've just read. Implication: X is a Lunarian name for Earth's Moon."

Hunt thought hard for a while.

"He arrived at Seltar, too, didn't he?" he said at last. "So if he knew where he was being sent as early as that, and you're certain he was being sent to the Moon, and he got where he was supposed to go . . . that rules out the other possibility that occurred to me. There's no way he could have been scheduled for Luna but rerouted somewhere else at the last minute without the entry in the pay book being changed, is there?"

Maddson shook his head. "No way. Why'd you want to make up things like that anyhow?"

"Because I'm looking for ways to get around what comes later. It gets crazy."

Maddson looked at Hunt curiously but suppressed his question. Hunt looked down at the papers again.

"Days Three and Four describe news reports of the fighting on Minerva. Obviously a large-scale conflict had already broken out there. It looks as if nuclear weapons were being used by then—that bit near the end of Day Four, for instance: It looks like the Lambians have succeeded in confusing the (sky nets?) over Paverol—That's a Cerian town, isn't it? Over half the city vaporized instantly. That doesn't sound like a limited skirmish. What's a sky net—some kind of electronic defense screen?"

"Probably," Maddson agreed.

"Day Five he spent helping to load the ships. From the descriptions of the vehicles and equipment, it sounds as if they were embarking a large military force of some kind." Hunt scanned rapidly down the next sheet. "Ah, yes—this is where he mentions Seltar. We're going with the Fourteenth Brigade to join the Annihilator emplacement at Seltar. There's something crazy about this Annihilator. But we'll come back to that in a minute.

"Day Seven. Embarked four hours ago as scheduled. Still sitting here. Takeoff delayed, since whole area under heavy missile attack. Hills inland all on fire. Launching pits intact but situation overhead confused. Unneutralized Lambian satellites still covering our flight path.

"Later. Received clearance for takeoff suddenly, and the whole flight was away in minutes. Didn't delay in planetary orbit at all—still not very healthy—so set course at once. Two ships reported lost on the way up. Koriel is taking bets on how many ships from our flight touch down on Luna. We're flying inside a tight defense screen but must stand out clearly on Lambian search radars. There's a bit about Koriel flirting with one of the girls from a signals unit—quite a character, this Koriel, wasn't he . . . ? More war news received en route . . . Now—this is the part I meant." Hunt found the entry with his finger.

"Day Eight. In Lunar orbit at last!" He laid the sheet down on the table and looked from one linguist to the other. "'In Lunar orbit at last.' Now, you tell me: Exactly how did that ship travel from Minerva to our Moon in under two of our days? Either there is some form of propulsion that UNSA ought to be finding out about, or we've been very wrong about Lunarian technology all along. But it doesn't fit. If they could do that, they didn't have any problem about developing space flight; they were way ahead of us. But I don't believe it—everything says they had a problem."

Maddson made a show of helplessness. He knew it was crazy. Hunt looked inquiringly at Maddson's assistant, who merely shrugged and pulled a face.

"You're sure he means Lunar orbit—our Moon?"

"We're sure." Maddson was sure.

"And there's no doubt about the date he shipped out?" Hunt persisted.

"The embarkation date is stamped in the pay book, and it checks with the date of the entry that says he shipped out. And don't forget the wording on Day—where was it?—here, Day Seven. 'Embarked four hours ago as scheduled'—See, 'as scheduled.' No suggestion of a change in timetable."

"And how certain is the date he reached Luna?" asked Hunt.

"Well that's a little more difficult. Just going by the dates of the notes, they're one Lunarian day apart, all right. Now, it's possible that he used a Minervan time scale on Minerva, but switched to some local system when he got to Luna. If so, it's a big coincidence that they tally like they do, but"—he shrugged—"it's possible. The thing that bothers me about that idea, though, is the absence of any entries between the shipout date and the arrival-at-Luna date. Charlie seems to have written his diary regularly. If the voyage took months, like you're saying it should have, it looks funny to me that there's nothing at all between those dates. It's not as if he'd been short of free time."

Hunt reflected for a few moments on these possibilities. Then he said, "There's worse to come. Let's press on for now." He picked up the notes and resumed:

"Landed at last, five hours ago. (Expletive) what a mess! The landscape below as we came in on the (approach run?) was glowing red in places all around Seltar for miles. There were lakes of molten rock, bright orange, some with walls of rocks plunging straight into them where whole mountains have been blown away. The base is covered deep in dust, and some of the surface installations have been crushed by flying debris. The defenses are holding out, but the outer perimeter is (torn to shreds?). Most important—[unreadable] diameter dish of the Annihilator is intact and it is operational. The last group of ships in our flight was wiped out by an enemy strike coming in from deep space. Koriel has been collecting on all sides."

Hunt laid the paper down and looked at Maddson. "Don," he said, "how much have you been able to piece together about this Annihilator thing?"

"It was a kind of superweapon. There was more information in some of the other texts. Both sides had them, sited on Minerva itself and, from what you're reading right now, on Luna too." He added as an afterthought, "Maybe on other places as well."

"Why on Luna? Any ideas?"

"Our guess is that the Cerians and the Lambians must have developed space-flight technology further than we thought," Maddson said. "Perhaps both sides had selected Earth as their target destination for the big move, and they both sent advance parties to Luna to set up a bridgehead and . . . protect the investment."

"Why not on Earth itself, then?"

"I dunno."

"Let's stick with it for now, anyway," Hunt said. "How much do we know about what these Annihilators were?"

"From the description dish, apparently it was some kind of radiation projector. From other clues, they fired a high-energy photon beam probably produced by intense matter-antimatter reaction. If so, the term Annihilator is particularly apt; it carries a double meaning."

"Okay." Hunt nodded. "That's what I thought. Now it goes silly." He consulted his notes. "Day Nine they were getting organized and repairing battle damage. What about Day Ten, then, eh?" He resumed reading:

"Day Ten. Annihilator used for the first time today. Three fifteen-minute blasts aimed at Calvares, Paneris, and Sellidorn. Now, they're all Lambian cities, right?

"So they have this Annihilator emplacement, sitting on our Moon, happily picking off cities on the surface of Minerva?"

"Looks like it," Maddson agreed. He didn't look very happy.

"Well, I don't believe it," Hunt declared firmly. "I don't believe they had the ability to register a weapon that accurately over that distance, and even if they could, I don't believe they could have held the beam narrow enough not to have burned up the whole planet. And I don't believe the power density at that range could have been high enough to do any damage at all." He looked at Maddson imploringly. "Christ, if they had technology like that, they wouldn't have been trying to perfect interplanetary travel—they'd have been all over the bloody Galaxy!"

Maddson gestured wide with his arms. "I just translate what the words tell me. You figure it out."

"It goes completely daft in a minute," Hunt warned. "Where was I, now . . . ?"

He continued to read aloud, describing the duel that developed between the Cerian Annihilator at Seltar and the last surviving Lambian emplacement on Minerva. With a weapon firing from far out in space and commanding the whole Minervan surface, the Cerians held the key that would decide the war. Destroying it was obviously the first priority of the Lambian forces and the prime objective of their own Annihilator on Minerva. The Annihilators required about one hour to recharge between firings, and Charlie's notes conveyed vividly the tension that built up in Seltar as they waited, knowing that an incoming blast could arrive at any second. All around Seltar the battle was building up to a frenzy as Lambian ground and space-borne forces hurled everything into knocking out Seltar before it could score on its distant target. The skill in operating the weapon lay in computing and compensating for the distortions induced in the aiming system by enemy electronic countermeasures. In one passage, Charlie detailed the effects of a near miss from Minerva that lasted for sixteen minutes, during which time it melted a range of mountains about fifteen miles from Seltar, including the Twenty-second and Nineteenth Armored Divisions and the Forty-fifth Tactical Missile Squadron that had been positioned there.

"This is it," Hunt said, waving one of the sheets in the air. "Listen to this. We've got it! Four minutes ago we fired a concentrated burst at maximum power. The announcement has just come over the loudspeaker down here that it scored a direct hit. Everyone is laughing and clapping each other on the back. Some of the women are crying with relief. That," said Hunt, slapping the papers down on the table and slumping back in his chair with exasperation, "is bloody ridiculous! Within four minutes of firing they had confirmation of a hit! How? How in God's name could they have? We know that when Minerva and Earth were at their closest, the distance between them would have been one hundred fifty to one hundred sixty million miles. The radiation would have taken something like thirteen minutes to cover that distance, and there would have to be at least another thirteen minutes before anybody on Luna could possibly know about where it struck. So, even with the planets at their closest positions, they'd have needed at least twenty-six minutes to get that report. Charlie says they got it in under four! That is absolutely, one-hundred-percent impossible! Don, how sure are you of those numbers?"

"As sure as we are of any other Lunarian time units. If they're wrong, you might as well tear up that calendar you started out with and go all the way back to square one."

Hunt stared at the page for a long time, as if by sheer power of concentration he could change the message contained in the neatly formatted sheets of typescript. There was only one thing that these figures could mean, and it put them right back to the beginning. At length he carried on:

"The next bit tells how the whole Seltar area came under sustained bombardment. A detachment including Charlie and Koriel was sent out overland to man an emergency command post about eleven miles from Seltar Base . . . I'll skip the details of that . . . Yes, here's the next bit that worries me. Under Day Twelve: Set off on time in a small convoy of two scout cars and three tracked trucks. The journey was weird—miles of scorched rocks and glowing pits. We could feel the heat inside the truck. Hope the shielding was good. Our new home is a dome, and underneath it are levels going down about fifty feet. Army units dug in the hills all around. We have landline contact with Seltar, but they seem to have lost touch with Main HQ at Gorda. Probably means all long-distance landlines are out and our comsats are destroyed. Again no broadcasts from Minerva. Lots of garbled military traffic. They must have assumed (frequency priority?). Today was the first time above surface for many days. The face of Minerva looks dirty and blotchy. There," Hunt said. "When I first read that, I thought he was referring to a video transmission. But thinking about it, why would he say it that way in that context? Why right after 'the first time above surface for many days'? But he couldn't have seen any detail of Minerva from where he was, could he?"

"Could have used a pretty ordinary telescope," Maddson's assistant suggested.

"Could have, I suppose," Hunt reflected. "But you'd think there'd be more important things to worry about than stargazing in the middle of all that. Anyhow, he goes on: About two-thirds is blotted out by huge clouds of brown and gray, and coastal outlines are visible only in places. There is a strange red spot glowing through, somewhere just north of the equator, with black spreading out from it hour by hour. Koriel reckons it's a city on fire, but it must be a tremendous blaze to be visible through all that. We've been watching it move across all day as Minerva rotates. Huge explosions over the ridge where Seltar Base is."

The narrative continued and confirmed that Seltar was totally destroyed as the fighting reached its climax. For two days the whole area was systematically pounded, but miraculously the underground parts of the dome remained intact, although the upper levels were blown away. Afterward the scattered survivors from the military units occupying the surrounding hills began straggling back, some in vehicles and many on foot, to the dome, which by this time was the only inhabitable place left for miles.

The expected waves of victorious Lambian troopships and armored columns failed to materialize. From the regular pattern of incoming salvos, the Cerian officers slowly realized that there was nothing left of the enemy army that had moved forward into the mountains around Seltar. In the fighting with the Cerian defenses, the Lambians had suffered immense losses and their survivors had pulled out, leaving missile batteries programmed to fire robot mode to cover their withdrawal.

On Day Fifteen, Charlie wrote: Two more red spots on Minerva, one northeast of the first and the other well south. The first has elongated from northwest to southeast. The whole surface is now just a mass of dirty brown with huge areas of black mixing in with it. Nothing at all on radio or video from Minerva; everything blotted out by atmospherics.

There was nothing further to be done at Seltar. The inhabitable parts of what had been the dome were packed with survivors and wounded; already many were having to live in the assortment of vehicles huddled around outside it. Supplies of food and oxygen, never intended for more than a small company, would give only a temporary respite. The only hope, slender as it was, lay in reaching HQ Base at Gorda overland—a journey estimated to require twenty days.

On Day Eighteen, the departure from the dome was recorded as follows: Formed up in two columns of vehicles. Ours moved out half an hour ahead of the second as a small advanced scouting group. We reached a ridge about three miles from the dome and could see the main column finish loading and begin lining up. That was when the missiles hit. The first salvo caught them all out in the open. They didn't have a chance. We trained our receivers on the area for a while, but there was nothing. The only way we'll ever get off this death furnace is if there are ships left at Gorda. As far as I know, there are 340 of us, including over a hundred girls. The column comprises five scout cars, eight tracked trucks, and ten heavy tanks. It will be a grim journey. Even Koriel isn't taking bets on how many get there.

Minerva is just a black, smoky ball, difficult to pick out against the sky. Two of the red spots have joined up to form a line stretching at an angle across the equator. Must be hundreds of miles long. Another red line is growing to the north. Every now and then, parts of them glow orange through the smoke clouds for a few hours and then die down again. Must be a mess there.

The column moved slowly through the desert of scorched gray dust, and its numbers shrank rapidly as wounds and radiation sickness took their toll. On Day Twenty-six they encountered a Lambian ground force and for three hours fought furiously among the crags and boulders. The battle ended when the remaining Lambian tanks broke cover and charged straight into the Cerian position, only to be destroyed right on the perimeter line by Cerian women firing laser artillery at point-blank range. After the battle there were 165 Cerians left, but not enough vehicles to carry them.

After conferring, the Cerian officers devised a plan to continue the journey leapfrog fashion. Half the company would be moved half a day's distance forward and left there with one truck to use as living accommodation, while the remaining vehicles returned to collect the group left behind. So it would go on all the way to Gorda. Charlie and Koriel were among the first group lifted on ahead.

Day Twenty-eight. Uneventful drive. Set up camp in a shady gorge and watched the convoy about-face again and begin its long haul back for the others. They should be back this time tomorrow. Nothing much to do until then. Two died on the drive, so there are fifty-eight of us here. We take turns to rest and eat inside the truck. When it's not your turn, you make yourself as comfortable as you can sitting among the rocks. Koriel is furious. He's just spent two hours sitting outside with four of the artillery girls. He says whoever designed space suits should have thought of situations like that.

The convoy never returned.

Using the single remaining truck, the group continued the same tactic as before, ferrying one party on ahead, dumping them, and returning for the rest. By Day Thirty-three, sickness, mishaps, and one suicide had depleted the numbers such that all the survivors could be carried in the truck at once, so the leapfrogging was discontinued. Driving steadily, they estimated they would reach Gorda on Day Thirty-eight. On Day Thirty-seven, the truck broke down. The spare parts needed to repair it were not available.

Many were weak. It was clear that an attempt to reach Gorda on foot would be so slow that nobody would make it.

Day Thirty-seven. Seven of us—four men (myself, Koriel, and two of the combat troopers) and three girls—are going to make a dash for Gorda while the others stay put in the truck and wait for a rescue party. Koriel is cooking a meal before we set out. He has been saying what he thinks of life in the infantry—doesn't seem to think much of it at all.

Some hours after they left the truck, one of the troopers climbed a crag to survey the route ahead. He slipped, gashed his suit, and died instantly from explosive decompression. Later on, one of the girls hurt her leg and lagged farther and farther behind as the pain worsened. The Sun was sinking and there was no time for slowing down. Everybody in the group wrestled with the same equation in his mind—one life or twenty-eight?—but said nothing. She solved the problem for them by quietly closing her air valve when they stopped to rest.

Day Thirty-eight. Just Koriel and me now—like the old days. The trooper suddenly doubled up, vomiting violently inside his helmet. We stood and watched while he died, and could do nothing. Some hours later, one of the girls collapsed and said she couldn't go on. The other insisted on staying with her until we send help from Gorda. Couldn't really argue—they were sisters. That was some time ago. We've stopped for a breather; I am getting near my limit. Koriel is pacing up and down impatiently and wants to get moving. That man has the strength of twelve [?lions?].

Later. Stopped at last for a couple of hours sleep. I'm sure Koriel is a robot—just keeps going and going. Human tank. Sun very low in sky. Must make Gorda before Lunar night sets in.

Day Thirty-nine. Woke up freezing cold. Had to turn suit heating up to maximum—still doesn't feel right. Think it's developing a fault. Koriel says I worry too much. Time to be on the move again. Feel stiff all over. Seriously wondering if I'll make it. Haven't said so.

Later. The march has been a nightmare. Kept falling down. Koriel insisted that the only chance we had was to climb up out of the valley we were in and try a short-cut over a high ridge. I made it about halfway up the cleft leading toward the ridge. Every step up the cleft I could see Minerva sitting right over the middle of the ridge, gashes of orange and red all over it, like a (macabre?) face, taunting. Then I collapsed. When I came to, Koriel had dragged me inside a pilot digging of some sort. Maybe someone was going to put an outpost of Gorda here. That was a while ago now. Koriel has gone on and says help will be back before I know it. Getting colder all the time. Feet numb and hands stiff. Frost starting to form in helmet—difficult to see.

Thinking about all the people strung out back there with night coming down, all like me, wondering if they'll be picked up. If we can hold out we'll be all right. Koriel will make it. If it were a thousand miles to Gorda, Koriel would make it.

Thinking about what has happened on Minerva and wondering if, after all this, our children will live on a sunnier world—and if they do, if they will ever know what we did.

Thinking about things I've never really thought about before. There should be better ways for people to spend their lives than in factories, mines, and army camps. Can't think what, though—that's all we've ever known. But if there is warmth and color and light somewhere in this Universe, then maybe something worthwhile will come out of what we've been through.

Too much thinking for one day. Must sleep for a while now.

Hunt found he had read right through to the end, absorbed in the pathos of those final days. His voice had fallen to a sober pitch. A long silence ensued.

"Well, that's it," he concluded, a little more briskly. "Did you notice that bit right at the end? In the last few lines he was talking about seeing the surface of Minerva again. Now, they might have used telescopes earlier on, but in the situation he was in there, they'd hardly be lugging half an observatory along with them, would they?"

Maddson's assistant looked thoughtful. "How about that periscope video gadget that was in the helmet?" he suggested. "Maybe there's something wrong in the translation. Couldn't he be talking about seeing a transmission through that?"

Hunt shook his head. "Can't see it. I've heard of people watching TV in all sorts of funny places, but never halfway up a bloody mountain. And another thing: He described it as sitting up above the ridge. That implies it's really out there. If it were a view on video, he'd never have worded it that way. Right, Don?"

Maddson nodded wearily. "Guess so," he said. "So, where do we go from here?"

Hunt looked from Maddson to the assistant and back again. He leaned his elbows on the edge of the table and rubbed his face and eyeballs with his fingers. Then he sighed and sat back.

"What do we know for sure?" he asked at last. "We know that those Lunarian spaceships got to our Moon in under two days. We know that they could accurately aim a weapon, sited on our Moon, at a Minervan target. We also know that the round trip for electromagnetic waves was much shorter than it could possibly have been talking about the right place. Finally, we can't prove but we think that Charlie could stand on our Moon and see quite clearly the surface features of Minerva. Well, what does that add up to?"

"There's only one place in the Universe that fits all those numbers," Maddson said numbly.

"Exactly—and we're standing on it! Maybe there was a planet called Minerva outside Mars, and maybe it had a civilization on it. Maybe the Ganymeans took a few animals there and maybe they didn't. But it doesn't really matter anymore, does it? Because the only planet Charlie's ship could possibly have taken off from, and the only planet they could have aimed that Annihilator at, and the only planet he could have seen in detail from Luna—is this one!

"They were from Earth all along!

"Everyone will be jumping off the roof and out of every window in the building when this gets around Navcomms."

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 618