Talents, Incorporated Page 6

  Chapter 6

  The _Isis_ approached Tralee from the night side, and at a time when theplanet's spaceport faced the sun. Tralee was not a base for Mekinesewar-craft. To the contrary, it was strictly a conquered world. It wasdesirable for Mekinese ships to be able to appear as if magically andwithout warning in its skies. There would be no far-ranging radars onthe planet except at its solitary spaceport. Mekinese ships could comeout of overdrive, time a solar-system-drive approach to arrive atTralee's atmosphere in darkness, and be hovering menacingly overheadwhen dawn broke. Such an appearance had strong psychological effectsupon the population.

  Bors used the same device with modifications.

  His ship plunged out of the sunrise and across half a continent,descending as it flew. When it reached the planet's capital city, therehad been less than a minute between the first notification by radar andits naked-eye visibility. When it came into sight at the spaceport itwas less than four thousand feet high and it went sweeping for thelanding-grid at something over mach one. Its emergency-rockets roared.It decelerated smoothly and crossed the upper rim of the great, lacymetal structure with less than a hundred feet to spare. In fractions ofan additional minute it was precisely aground some fifty yards from thespaceport office. Steam and smoke rose furiously from where itsrocket-flames had played.

  Lock-doors opened. Briskly moving landing-parties trotted across theground toward the grid-control building. There were two ships already inthe spaceport. One was a Mekinese guard-ship of approximately thearmament of the _Isis_. Weapons trained swiftly upon it. Missiles roaredacross the half-mile of distance. They detonated, chemical explosivesonly. The Mekinese guard-ship flew apart. What remained was not trulyidentifiable as a former ship. It was fragments.

  Bors asked curtly, "Grid office?"

  The landing-party was inside. A small tumult came out of a speaker. Avoice said:

  "_All secure in the grid office, sir._"

  "Hook in to planetary broadcast, declare a first-priority emergency, andrun your tape," commanded Bors.

  He said over the ship's speakers, "Everything going well so far. Prizecrew, take the cargo-ship. Keep the crew aboard. Then report."

  Ten men poured out of the grounded light cruiser's starboard port andtrotted on the double toward the other ship aground. The weapons onBors's ship did not bear upon it.

  The sun shone. Clouds drifted tranquilly across the sky. Masses of smokefrom the demolition-missiles that had smashed the guard-ship rose,curled and very slowly dissipated. Ten men entered the bulbouscargo-ship.

  Up to now the entire affair had consumed not more than five minutes,from the appearance of a blip on a spaceport radar screen, to thebeginning of a full-volume broadcast. Bors turned on the receiver andlistened to the harsh voice--especially chosen from among thecrew--which now came out of every operating broadcast receiver on theplanet.

  "_Notice to the people of Tralee! There is aground on Tralee a ship withno home planet nor any loyalty except to its hatred of Mekin. We werepart of the fleet of Kandar until that fleet was destroyed. Now we fightMekin alone! We are pirates. We are outcasts. But we still have arms todefend ourselves with! We demand...._"

  A voice said curtly in Bors's ear, "Cargo-ship secured, sir."

  "Take off on rockets and maneuver as ordered," said Bors. "Thenrendezvous as arranged."

  He returned his attention to the broadcast. It was a deliberatelysavage, painstakingly desperate, carefully terrifying message to thepeople of Tralee. It demanded supplies and arms on threat of destroyingthe city around it. A single one of its combat-missiles, as a matter offact, could have done a good job of destruction on this metropolis.

  The broadcast would be a shattering experience to men who had reconciledthemselves to subjugation by the rulers of Mekin. The planet Tralee wasnow governed for the benefit of Mekin by the kind of men who would dosuch work. They knew that they could stay in office only so long asMekin upheld them. To hear their protectors denounced if only by asingle voice....

  There was a monstrous roaring outside. The cargo-ship took off for theskies. It was a thousand feet high before the weapons on the _Isis_stirred. It seemed to those below that the pirate crew was takenunawares by the cargo-ship's escape. That was part of Bors's plan.

  A weapon of the grounded _Isis_ roared. A missile hurtled after thefugitive, and missed. It went on past its apparent target and did noteven detonate at nearest proximity, as it should have done. It vanished,and the cargo-ship continued to rise in seemingly panicky fashion. Itslanted from its headlong lift, and curved away and darted for emptinessat its maximum acceleration. A second missile from the fighting-shipmissed. The cargo-ship dwindled, and dwindled, and now the _Isis_appeared to take deliberate measurements of the distance andacceleration of its target. It might be assumed that its radars neededto be readjusted from the long-range-finding required in space, to theshorter-range measurements called for now.

  Something plunged after the fleeing cargo-boat, by now merely apin-point in the blue. The rising object moved so swiftly that it wasinvisible. Then it detonated, and the fumes of the explosion blotted outthe fugitive. When they cleared, the sky was empty.

  There had now been a lapse of less than ten minutes from the firstsighting of the _Isis_ screaming toward the spaceport. The guard-shiphad been destroyed and the cargo-ship which seemed to flee hadapparently been destroyed. When someone had leisure to think, it wouldappear that the cargo-boat's crew had overcome the armed party whichentered it and then taken the foolish course of flight.

  Bors waited, listening absently. A voice:

  "_All clear on board the prize, sir. The cargo seems to be mostlyfoodstuffs, sir. Proceeding to rendezvous as ordered. Off._"

  Bors nodded automatically and resumed listening to the broadcast.Matters were going well. Everything had gone through with the precisionof clockwork, which meant simply that Bors had planned in detailsomething that had never been anticipated and so had not beencounter-planned. Before anyone on Tralee realized that anything hadhappened, everything had happened--the _Isis_ aground, the guard-shipdemolished, the grid taken over, and a fleeing cargo-ship apparentlydestroyed in the upper atmosphere. And a harsh voice now rasped out ofloudspeakers everywhere, uttering threats, cursing Mekin--few couldbelieve their ears--and rousing hopes which Bors knew regretfully werebound to be disappointed.

  The rasping broadcast cut off in the middle of a syllable. Somebody hadcome to believe that he really heard what he thought he heard. Now therewould be reaction. At the sunrise-line on Tralee only a handful ofpeople were awake. They were dumbfounded. Where people breakfasted, theintentionally savage voice made food seem unimportant. Where it wasmidday, waves of violent emotion swept over the land.

  "Call the defense forces," Bors commanded the grid office, bytransmitter. "They'll be Mekinese--Mekinese-officered, anyhow. We don'twant them to get ideas of attacking us, so identify us as the pirateship _Isis_ and order all police and garrison troops to stay exactlywhere they are. Say we've got all our fusion-bombs armed to go off incase of an artillery-fire hit."

  This was the most valid of all possible threats against the mostprobable form of attack. Fusion-bombs could be used against enemies inspace, or for the annihilation of a population, but they could not beused in police operations against a subject people. To coerce people onemust avoid destroying them. So while a ship the size of the _Isis_could--and did--carry enough confined hellfire in its missile warheadsto destroy an area hundreds of miles across, the occupation troops ofMekin could not use such weapons. They needed blast-rifles for minorthreats and artillery for selective destruction. In any case no sane manwould try to destroy the _Isis_ aground after an announcement that itsbombs were armed, and that they were fused to explode.

  "Now repeat the demand for stores," ordered Bors. "We might as wellstock up. Speed is essential. We can't use stores they've time tobooby-trap or poison. Give them twenty minutes to start the stuffarriving. Demand fuel, extra rocket-fuel especially. Remind them abou
tour bombs."

  He waited. Speakers beside him could inform him of any action anywhereoutside or inside the ship. The landing-party in the spaceport buildingreported as it went through the spaceport records, picking up suchinformation concerning Mekinese commercial regulations,identification-calls and anticipated ship-movements as might proveuseful elsewhere. The rasping voice began to broadcast again. It went onfor fifteen seconds and cut off.

  "Tell the government broadcasting system that if they stop relaying ourbroadcast," said Bors, "we'll heave a bomb into the police barracks andthe supply-depots."

  He heard the threat issued and very soon thereafter an agitated voiceannounced to the people of Tralee that a pirate ship was in possessionof the planet's spaceport and that it insisted upon broadcasting to theplanet's people. It was considered unwise to refuse. Therefore thebroadcast would continue, but of course citizens could turn off theirsets.

  There came a roar of anger and the harsh-voiced broadcaster returned tothe air. His taped broadcast had run out. Now he bellowed suchsubversive profanity directed at the officials of Tralee-under-Mekinthat Bors smiled sourly. It was not good for Mekinese prestige to have asubject people know that one ship could defy the empire, even forminutes. It was still less desirable to have the members of the puppetgovernment described as dogs of particularly described breeds, ofparticularly described characteristics, and particular lack oflegitimacy. Bors had chosen for his broadcast a man of vivid imaginationand large vocabulary. He did not want the _Isis_ to appear underdiscipline, lest it seem to act under orders. He wanted to create theimpression of men turned pirates because everything they lived for hadbeen destroyed, and who now were running amok among the planets Mekinhad subjugated.

  The broadcast was not incitement to revolt, because Bors's ship wasposing as the only survivor of a planet's fleet. But it conveyed suchcontempt and derision and hatred of all things Mekinese that for monthsto come men would whisper jokes based on what an _Isis_ crewman had saidon Tralee's air. The respect the planet's officials craved would dropbelow its former low level.

  Time passed. Bors, of course, could not send a landing-party anywhere,lest it be sniped. He had actually accomplished the purpose for whichhe'd landed, the getting of a shipload of food out to space, theannouncement of the destruction of Kandar's fleet and the spreading ofcontempt and derision for Mekin in Tralee. Now he had to keep anyonefrom suspecting the importance of the cargo-ship. The demand for storeswas a cover-up for things already done. But that cover-up had to becompleted.

  Vehicles appeared at the edge of the landing-grid. Figures advancedindividually, waving white flags. Bors sent men out with small arms toget their messages. These were the supplies he'd demanded. Food.Rocket-fuel. More food.

  The vehicles trundled into the open and stopped. Men from the _Isis_waved away the drivers and took over the trucks. They brought most ofthem to the ship's side. A petty-officer came into the control room andsaluted.

  "Sir," he said briskly. "One of the drivers told me his load of grub hadtime-bombs in it. The secret police use time-bombs and booby-traps here,sir, to keep the people terrified. He says the bombs will go off afterwe're out in space, sir."

  "What did you do?" asked Bors.

  "I pretended the truck stalled and I couldn't start it. Two otherdrivers tipped off our men. We left those trucks and some others out onthe field, so the drivers wouldn't be suspected of alerting us."

  "Good work," said Bors. "Better put detectors on all parcels from alltrucks before bringing them aboard."

  "Booby-traps can be made very tricky indeed, but when they are used bysecret police...." Bors allowed himself to rage for a moment only, atthe idea of that kind of terrorism practiced by a government on itssupposed citizens. It would be intended to enforce the totalitarian ideathat what is not commanded for the ordinary citizen to do is forbiddento him. But secret-police booby-traps and time-bombs would bestandardized. He hadn't allowed time for complex, detection-proofdevices to be made. Detectors would pick out any ordinary trickery.

  The harsh-voiced broadcaster continued to harangue the population ofTralee, of which the least of his words was high treason. They enjoyedthe broadcast very much.

  Presently Bors began to fidget. The _Isis_ had been aground forthirty-five minutes. He had sat in the control room that whole time,supervising a smoothly-running operation. He had had to supervise it.Nobody else could have planned and carried it out. But it was notheroic. He had the line officer's inherent scorn for administrativeofficers, who are necessary but not glamorous or admired. He was stuckwith just that kind of duty now. But he fretted. The local officialswere given time to get over their panic. They ought to be planning somecounter-measure by this time.

  He called the spaceport office.

  "There should be a map of the city somewhere about," he said crisply."Send it along special. Bring a communicator call-book. If you find anynews-reports, new or old, we want them."

  "_Yes, sir_," said a brisk voice. "_The broadcast's right, sir?_"

  "It is," said Bors. "You're mining the grid set-up. We'll blow it beforewe leave. There's no point in letting Mekin set down transports loadedwith troops to punish innocent people because they heard the Mekineseaccurately described. Make 'em land on rockets and there won't be somany landing."

  "_Yes, sir. Will do, sir._"

  A click. Bors heard heavy materials being loaded aboard. Each object wasbeing examined by a detector. The loading process stopped. Bors presseda button.

  "What happened?" he demanded.

  "_Looks like a booby-trapped box, sir_," said a voice. "_Among thesupplies, sir._"

  "Take it off a hundred yards and riddle it," ordered Bors. "This maysettle a problem for us."

  "_Yes, sir._"

  Bors fidgeted again. A messenger from the grid-control building arrived.He had a map of the capital city of Tralee.

  There was an explosion. A violent one. Bors looked out a port and sawwhere the suspected parcel had been set up as a target a hundred yardsfrom the ship. It had been riddled with blast-rifle bolts, and hadexploded. It might not have destroyed the _Isis_ if it had exploded inspace, but it would not have done it any good.

  Bors pushed the button for the loading-port compartment.

  "Throw out all the stuff loaded so far," he commanded. "Some of it maybe booby-trapped like that last one. We won't take a chance. Heave itall out again."

  "_Yes, sir._"

  Bors gave other orders. The harsh-voiced broadcast stopped. Bors's ownvoice went out on the air, steely-hard.

  "Captain Bors, pirate ship _Isis_ speaking," he said coldly. "Wedemanded supplies. They were sent us--government-supplied. We have foundone booby-trap included. In retaliation for this attemptedassassination, we are going to lob chemical-explosive missiles into theprincipal government buildings of this city. We give three minutes'leeway for clerks and other persons to get clear of those buildings. Thethree minutes start now!"

  The sun shone tranquilly on the planet Tralee. White clouds floated withinfinite leisureliness across the blue sky. There was no motion of anysort within the wide, open area of the landing-grid. Over a large partof this world's surface all activity had stopped while men listened to abroadcast.

  "Fifteen seconds gone," said Bors icily.

  He wrote out an order and passed it for execution.

  "Thirty seconds gone."

  From twenty giant buildings in the city, a black tide of running figuresbegan to pour. When they reached the street, they went on running. Theywanted to get as far as possible from the buildings Bors had said wouldbe destroyed.

  "Forty-five seconds gone," said Bors implacably.

  A voice spoke from the grid-control building, where men were nowplacing explosives with precisely calculated effects. The voice came onmicrowaves to the ship.

  "_Sir_," said the voice, "_landing-grid reporting. Space-yacht_ Sylva_reports breakout from overdrive and asks coordinates for landing.Purpose of visit, pleasure-travel._"

  Bors swo
re, then smiled to himself. Gwenlyn had threatened to dosomething drastic!

  "Say landing's forbidden," he commanded an instant later. "Adviseimmediate departure."

  He pressed a button and said evenly:

  "One minute gone! In two minutes more we send our bombs and take off."

  Streets outside the government buildings were filled from building-wallto building-wall by clerks drafted to staff the incredible, arbitrarygovernment set up on its tributary worlds by Mekin. Bors scribbled alist of buildings to be ranged on. The map from the spaceport officewould help. He marked the Ministry of Police, which would contain therecords essential to the operation of the planet-wide police system.Anything that happened to those records would be so much good fortunefor Tralee, and so much bad for the master race and its quislings. Hemarked the Ministry of the Interior, which would house the machinery forrequisitions of tribute to Mekin. The Ministry of Public Order would bethe headquarters of the secret and the political police. It ran theforced-labor camps. It filed all anonymous accusations. It kept recordson all persons suspected of the crime of patriotism. If anythinghappened to those records, it would be all to the good.

  "Two minutes gone," said Bors.

  The voice from the spaceport control building said briskly:

  "_Demolition charges placed, sir. Ready to evacuate and fire. Sir, thespace-yacht_ Sylva _sends a message to the captain of the pirate ship.It says they'll wait._"

  Bors said, "Damn! All right." Then into the broadcast-microphone,"Two-and-a-half minutes. There will be no further count-down. In thirtyseconds we fire missiles into government buildings, in retaliation foran attempt to assassinate us with time-bombs. The next sound you hearwill be our missiles arriving." He cut back to the grid-controlbuilding. "Fire all charges and report to the ship."

  Almost instantly curt, crisp reports sounded nearby. The landing-partycame smartly back to the airlock, while explosions continued in thebuilding they'd left.

  "Launcher-tubes train on targets," Bors commanded. He pressed anotherbutton. "Rocket-room, make ready for lift." Back to the launcher-tubecommunicator. "Fire missiles one, two, three, four, five, six."

  There were boomings, which rose to bellowings as devastation tore awayfrom the _Isis's_ launching-tubes. Bors said irritably to therocket-room:

  "Take her up!"

  And then the ship lifted on her rockets--they were not solely foremergency use, as on cargo-ships--and rushed toward the sky. As the shipmounted on its column of writhing smoke, other smoky columns spouted up.Six of them. But they were limited. They went up two thousand feet andthen tended to mushroom. Bits of debris went higher and spread morewidely, and for a time there were fragments of buildings and theircontents flying wildly about.

  But the ship went straight upward. The city and the open country beyondit shrank swiftly. The spouted smokes of explosions in the city wereleft behind. Mountains appeared at one horizon and a sea at another.Then the vast expanse of the planet suddenly acquired a curved edge, andthe ship again went up and up--while the sky turned dark and some starsappeared in futile competition with the sun--and the surface of Traleebecame visibly the near side of an enormous globe.

  Then the planet became plainly what it was, a great ball floating inspace, one-half of it brilliant in the sunshine and one part of itbathed in night.

  Bors put on the solar-system drive and changed course. A voice camethrough:

  "_Calling pirate ship ... calling pirate ship.... Space yacht_ Sylva_calling pirate ship...._"

  Bors growled into a microphone, "What the devil are you doing in thisplace. What's happened?"

  Gwenlyn's voice, bland and amused. "_Nothing happened. But we've gotsome news for you. Make rendezvous at the fourth planet?_"

  Bors swore again. That was where he was to meet the cargo-ship capturedand sent aloft, supposedly destroyed on Tralee. But he drove on out,around and away from Tralee.

  He was reasonably satisfied with his landing on Tralee. With some luck,the news of the landing of a lone survivor of the Kandarian fleet mightreach Mekin before it was aware of what had happened to its occupationforce. With a little more luck, the attention of Mekin would be devotedmore to a ship which dared to turn pirate than to Kandar itself. Withunlimited favorable fortune, Mekin might actually send ships to hunt the_Isis_ instead of asking questions on Kandar.

  But Bors made a mental note. The more time that passed before Mekin knewwhat had happened, the better. So a ship or two or three might bedetached from the fleet and sent back to hang off Kandar. If a singleship came inquiringly, it might be sniped and the news of Kandarsuppressed for a while longer. And it was conceivable that Mekin mightcome to worry more about other matters than the success or failure of aroutine expansion of its empire.

  The fourth planet loomed up on schedule. Bors was irritated, as oftenbefore, by the relatively slow solar-system drive. Overdrive wassometimes not fast enough--but solar-system drive was infuriatinglyslow. Yet one couldn't use overdrive in a solar system. Approaching aplanet on overdrive would be like trying to garage a ground-car at sixtymiles an hour. One couldn't stop where one wanted to. He wonderedvaguely if Logan, the math Talent, could handle such a problem, anddismissed the idea. One could break a circuit with an accuracy ofmicroseconds, but that wouldn't be close enough for overdrive. Itwouldn't be practical.

  Then the ice-sheet of Tralee's nearest neighbor planet spread out in thevision-port's range of view. Bors called for the cargo-ship. It answeredalmost immediately. It was standard practice, of course, that the siteof a meeting planned at a given planet would be wherever its polespointed nearest to galactic north. The cargo-ship had just arrived. Itbarely responded before the _Sylva_ began to call again.

  The three ships, then, joined their orbits and went swinging about theglacier-world beneath them while they conferred.

  The report from the cargo-ship was unexpectedly satisfactory. It hadbeen almost completely loaded, and its cargo was largely foodstuffsintended for Mekin. Kandar's fleet-in-hiding was already subsisting onemergency rations. This cargo of assorted frozen foods would be welcome.Bors gave orders for it to head for Glamis immediately, in overdrive.

  Communication had been three-way, and Gwenlyn said quickly;

  "_Just a moment! Did you pick up any news-reports on Tralee?_"

  "Hm. Yes. I'd better send them--"

  "_You'd better?_" echoed Gwenlyn, scolding. "_My father stayed with thefleet to try to explain what Talents, Incorporated can do! He kept mostof the Talents with him, for demonstrations! The Department forPredicting Dirty Tricks is there! Don't you remember what thatDepartment works on? Of course you've got to send those news-reports!_"

  Bors ordered a space-boat to come from the cargo-ship for the reports.

  "_Would you like to come to dinner on the yacht?_" asked Gwenlyn."_You're all living on emergency rations. Nobody asked us to divide oursupplies with the fleet. I can give you a nice meal._"

  "Better not," said Bors curtly, and mumbled thanks.

  He ordered the cargo-ship to send as much of its stores as thespace-boat could conveniently carry.

  "_Then how about some cigars?_" asked Gwenlyn. She seemed at once amusedand approving, because Bors would not indulge himself in a reallysatisfying meal while his crew lived on far from appetizing emergencyfoodstuffs.

  "No," said Bors. "No cigars either. You said you had some news for me.What is it?"

  "_I brought along our ship-arrival Talent_," said Gwenlyn blandly. "_Hecan only tell when a ship will arrive at the solar system where he is,so he had to come here to precognize._"

  Bors felt again that stubborn incredulity which Talents, Incorporatedwould always rouse in a mind like his.

  "_There'll be a ship arriving here in two days, four hours, sixteenminutes from now_," said Gwenlyn matter-of-factly. "_He thinks it's afighting ship, though he can't be sure. It could be a cruiser orsomething like that doing mail duty, coming to deliver orders andreceive reports. You can't run an empire without a regular news system
,and Mekin wouldn't depend on commercial ships for government business._"

  "Good!" said Bors. "Thanks!"

  There was a pause.

  "_What will you do now?_"

  "Try to raise the devil somewhere else," said Bors. "Try to pick upanother food-ship, probably. Maybe I ought to let this ship alone, tocarry news of the pirate ship _Isis_ back to Mekin, but-- No. They usebooby-traps as police devices!"

  It was not reasonable, but Bors could not think of missing a Mekinesewarship. The idea of a government using booby-traps to enforce itsorders somehow put it beyond forgiveness, and with the government allthose who served it willingly.

  "_You'll go to Garen then?_" asked Gwenlyn.

  Bors felt a sharp sting of annoyance. He had carefully kept secret thechoice of Garen Three as the next planet to be invaded by thepseudo-pirate ship. It was upsetting to find that Gwenlyn knew about it.Blast Talents, Incorporated!

  "_The dowsing Talent_," said Gwenlyn, "_says there's a battleshipaground there. There've been some riots. The people of Garen don't likeMekin, either. Strange? The battleship is to overawe them._"

  "How do you know that?" demanded Bors.

  "_The Department for Predicting Dirty Tricks was reading oldnews-reports_," she told him. "_We're leaving now. 'Bye._"

  "Goodbye," said Bors, and sighed, not knowing whether he felt regret orrelief.

  The space-yacht _Sylva_ flicked out of sight. It had gone intooverdrive. Bors realized that he hadn't noticed which way it pointed. Heshould have taken note. But he shook his head. He gave the cargo-shipdetailed orders, receiving its space-boat and what food it had been ableto bring. He sent it off to meet his fleet at Glamis.

  He stayed in orbit around the fourth planet to wait for a Mekinesefighting-ship. He began, too, to make long-range plans.

  _Part Three_