The Mad Scientist had been on the fourth planet for over a year, but his new materials had only arrived a week before Arnold and Jerry did. In fact, the Mad Scientist was still setting things up when Arnold took the first watch.
"Uh huh . . ." Arnold tracked the reflecting telescope a few hundredths of a degree to the left, "Uh huh . . . got him. There he is."
Jerry looked up from a comic book. "Can I see him?"
"Sure," Arnold told him. "Doesn't look like he's doing much right now, though." He switched the 'scope's image onto the pressure-tent's only viewing screen.
Jerry furrowed his brow as he studied the image. "Yeah," he mused, "I think he's eating lunch. Or writing something. Hard to tell. Why couldn't we have just put a couple of low-orbiting spysats over the Mad Scientists head?"
"Two reasons: one, they would only pass over him once per orbit, and two, for us to receive pictures from them would mean they'd have to transmit those pictures to us, and as usual the Bureau is afraid someone might get hold of the stray signals."
"Oh, like those signals are going to be strong enough to pick up in another star system! Come on, spysats use tight-beamed broadcasts; stray signals get weaker than the background noise within a million clicks, and if you're close enough to pick those up you're close enough to set up your own telescope."
Arnold shrugged. "No one ever accused the SBI of being infallable decisionmakers."
"So . . ." Jerry began tenatively, "The Mad Scientist's former successes aside, this . . . this whole Phased Antimatter Bomb project . . . well, it's huge. I mean, 25 kilograms of positrons . . . that's a gigantic investment for Sol to make."
"Mmmm hmmm?" Arnold cocked an eyebrow as he continued to stare at the screen, wondering what his compatriot was getting at.
"So, I mean why . . . I mean, sure, there's a good chance it'll work given the Mad Scientist's track record and all, but come on — the guy's got 'mad' in his name, for crying out loud. If his theories are wrong this time, a third of Sol's positron stockpile is going to go poof. Why do you think Sol's taking such an enormous economic risk?"
Arnold shrugged. "Hadn't thought about it much, really. If it works, Sol's got a weapon powerful enough to blast apart any invading fleet before it could get close enough to do any harm."
"Or blast away half the atmosphere of any developed planet," Jerry opined.
Arnold narrowed his gaze and glanced sidelong at his companion. "Uh . . . huh," he half-growled.
Jerry clicked his teeth with his tongue. "Look, you've read the Henderson speech, haven't you?"
"Who hasn't?" Arnold looked him squarely in the eye. "There's not a man or woman alive who didn't, at some point in his or her life — however brief that point might have been — believe in the Henderson Doctrine."
Jerry swallowed a hard lump in his throat. "Yeah, me too, okay? I'm not exactly proud of that period in my life."
"Look, Sol might be a bully from time to time," Arnold went on, "But we're not monsters. Yes. If this Phased Antimatter Bomb lives up to the Mad Scientist's hype, then we could blast an entire planet back into the stone age. But it's the threat of doing such a thing that makes a nation strong, not the actual doing. Deterrence, that's the key force in any nation's military. It kept ancient Rome from being attacked for hundreds of years, it kept the United States at the top of the food chain for nearly a century, and it's what'll keep Sol united, and strong, and safe, and prosperous."
The only thing he couldn't predict with absolute certainty was which side of the device the gamma ray burst would shoot out from. The odds were 9 in 10 that the reaction would shoot out from the device's right side; so, he'd oriented it with the right side pointing straight up.
This was one time the Mad Scientist guessed wrong.
A 200-meter-wide shaft of gamma rays, each photon in phase with the next, thundered out of the device's base and straight into the ground. The thin methane air turned straight to plasma and underwent thermonuclear fusion. All rock within seven kilometers of the beam vaporized. Ten clicks and a few milliseconds away, the shock and heat waves of the beam's interaction with UV Ceti IV overwhelmed the tiny pressurized bunker housing the Mad Scientist and blew it to incandescent fragments. For the briefest instant, before the atoms of his body joined their indistingushable brethren in the inferno, the Mad Scientist realized he wasn't going to get to test his Zero Drive.
And 6600 kilometers straight down, the same 200-meter-wide shaft of gamma rays erupted from the other side of the planet and lanced out into deep space.
Even through his telescope's leaded solar filter, Arnold's field of view flashed to a steady blinding white. Jerry's scope monitor likewise turned highest-white with no detail visible. Both SBI agents tore their attention away from their close-ups to peer out the main window, to view UV Ceti IV without magnification. The point on the planet's surface where the device had gone off was now a blazing disc several kilometers across. Around it, a compressed ring of atmosphere expanded outward like a concentric ripple on a pond, sending the ionized carbon and hydrogen atoms of what had once been methane into space and leaving a vacuum in its wake. At the speed this shock wave was travelling, the whole atmosphere of the planet would be stripped away in a matter of minutes.
But far worse was a wide, glowing red ring surrounding the white blast disc that crept ever wider. Jerry grabbed the telescope's contols and pointed it a fraction of a degree away from ground zero. Through the scope's magnification, the red ring appeared as incandescent, fissured rock. Jerry pointed the scope farther away, so that it pointed just inside the main shock wave, and his fears were realized. This new section of ground, hundreds of kilometers away from ground zero, was also cracking into widening fissures. The entire surface of the planet was crumbling.
"Look!" Arnold pointed, showing genuine alarm for the first time since Jerry had met him. "On the far side!"
The ghost of a tail protruded from behind the planet, its base apparently thousands of kilometers closer but hidden by the planet's bulk. "The device was supposed to relese all its energy in a coherent beam," Arnold reasoned. "That spike must be the beam coming out the other side."
"It . . . it went all the way through?!" Jerry stuttered.
At that moment, the shock wave from the beam leaving the far side of the planet rounded into view. "Yeah," Arnold mumbled in awe.
"Then," began Jerry, "The damage that's happening on the planet's surface —"
"Is happening all the way through its interior too," Arnold finished his sentence.
As the two airborn shockwaves met and sent the remains of UV Ceti IV's atmosphere into space, Jerry aimed the telescope at an arbitrary point on the planet's surface far away from the blast point. The surface there was developing fissures, too. And a hot red glow emanated from those cracks. Arnold saw the scene on the scope monitor and winced. "That shaft running all the way through the interior, ten or fifteen clicks wide, turned straight from solid into hot gas. The pressure . . . it's turning UV Ceti IV inside-out."
"My God . . ." Jerry whispered. "The whole
planet. . . ."
"Up," Arnold chanted as he hit the wide Engage panel. The engines boomed to life. "And out!"
The ascender quaked in the engines' din and both occupants sank into their couches. "Nyurgh!" Jerry moaned under his new weight, "How many g's . . . nyargh! . . . did you set it for?!"
"Seven!" Arnold yelled over the thunderous roar.
"Seven?!"
"I throttled it back for you," Arnold explained. "I usually like to pull nine!"
"Aaargh!" Jerry groaned. "I . . . hate . . .
ascents! I hate ascents, I hate ascents, I hate ascents I hate ascents I
hateascentsIhateascentsIhateascents!!"
"Hm!" Arnold said, the amazement still evident in his voice. "Looked like the pebble just vanished the instant it hit the plane. You getting any radar echoes?"
"None," Jerry replied. "The rock you threw is gone, all right."
Arnold furrowed his brow inside his helmet. "I'm going to edge closer to get a better look."
"Closer?!" Jerry winced in alarm.
"Don't worry, don't worry," Arnold replied, thumbing his thruster buttons, "I'll close at less than two meters a second. That'll give me plenty of time to slow down or stop long before I — aaaaaagh!"
Jerry gasped. "Arnie! Arnie! What happened?!" A short silence. "Report, dammit!"
A planet-sized cloud of orbiting debris is just that — orbiting. While nearly every chunk will drift along in a stately manner, with nearly the same speed and direction as every other chunk, there are always those one or two rogue chunks that, through whatever misfortunes befell them, are zinging through the cloud at wildly different speeds. The kinds of "wildly different" speeds you can encounter in interplanetary space tend to be on the order of many kilometers per second. One of these rocky space bullets the size of a dime had had the incredible luck — bad luck — to lay on a course that sent it directly into Arnold's left shoulder. It splashed through suit and flesh and bone and sinew, and came out the other side hardly slower than when it entered. The suits were all self-sealing, per SBI spec, and so the two holes stopped leaking air almost as soon as they'd started. But . . .
"I can't move my arm!" Arnold finally yelled into his transceiver. "Something hit me and hit me hard! It must've hit a nerve, or a tendon, or something. My fingers won't move and my arm's hardly more than a club right now!"
"Get out of there!" Jerry barked, glancing over at the First Aid cabinet. "I'll open the airlock for you right now, and extend the tether to —"
"No can do," Arnold interrupted him. "It was my left arm! I . . . can't . . . work the thruster controls!"
Jerry gasped, and looked down at the ascender's maneuvering panel for the first time that trip. It seemed ornately complicated for such a simple thing as low-speed translation and rotation. "I'm . . . I'm coming over to get you!" He grasped what he was sure was the translation lever and pressed, but nothing fired.— He could feel his breath quicken and the nervous sweat start to build as he scanned the terse abbreviations above the myriad controls. "If I can figure out this panel, I'll put the ascender right in front of you and try to rotate so that you'll drift right into the airlock!"
There was the switch bank he was looking for — "Quad Arm". He flipped all four switches upward, and frantically tried the translation lever again. Nothing. He pressed the lever harder, and as he did so the propellant feed finished its brief power-on cycle and the ascender lurched wildly forward and to the right.
"Careful, Jerry!" Arnold stammered as tried more and more creative ways to trigger his thruster controls. "Don't get too close to that damn space hole!"
Now consigned to his helplessness, Arnold at last looked up from his disabled left arm to get his bearings. He would be drifting in the last direction he'd last fired his thrusters in . . . and with growing alarm, he realized that this sent him on a direct course for the dead-center of that circular ocean of blackness that had so captured their attention in the moments before. "Um . . . Jerry?"
"Yeah?" Jerry yelped a little too quickly, finally getting the craft on what looked, more or less, like an intercept trajectory. A slow-moving hunk of UV Ceti IV banged off his outer hull.
"You'd better get here," Arnold said with worrisome calm, "Kinda quick-like."
"Uh . . . can you get us back to Earth?"
"Yes."
"Good. Then do it."
"Planetary and stellar escape trajectories selected. How quickly do you wish to accelerate?"
"Erm . . . how fast can we go?"
"Spacecraft's acceleration limit is 8.9 g. Engine efficiency dropoff, however, puts shortest travel time to Sol space at an acceleration of 3.4 g. Human accceleration tolerance limit under submetabolic sleep is 4.8 g."
"3.4 g's, then. Oh, wait! Put us at one g right now, and go to 3.4 once I'm in hibernation."
"Best course to Earth, 1 g immediately, 3.4 g once all occupants are in submetabolic sleep. Estimated rest-time en route 10 years 65 days. Confirm?"
"Yes, do it."
Jerry crumpled to the floor, unprepared for the engines to come to life so quickly. "Damn." He struggled back to his feet; he wasn't used to supporting his full terrestrial weight. Well, at least he knew the engines were working. He was underway.
"Erm, hibernation," he half-asked.
"Would you like to enter submetabolic sleep now?"
"Is there anything else I need to do first?"
"This spacecraft and SI Controller are self-maintaining. All vessel and person needs will be handled autonomously while occupants are in submetabolic sleep. Occupants will be revived three hours prior to arrival or immediately in case of anomaly."
"Okay, then, freeze me."
There was a whir from the adjoining hibernation room. The display blanked and responded, "One individual chamber prepared. You may enter when ready for submetabolic sleep."
He grinned a tired, satisfied grin, walked to the hibernation room's hatch, opened it — and slowed to a stop. I don't have to tell you the experiment's strategic implications should it prove successful, he mouthed, recalling the orders he and Arnold received when they first arrived. The strategic implications. The power to turn any solid planet inside-out. In the sole posession of the Solar Federal Government.
The power to eradicate a world — to eradicate any world — in the hands of a few people who believe that Centaurians are sub-human.
No, he shook his head, Arnold had been right — the Solar government may be a bunch of bullies, but they weren't monsters. Such a weapon would be more useful as a deterrent than as a weapon of mass genocide. . . . assuming, that is, that their enemies actually knew about it. That their potential attackers actually believed that a weapon so powerful even existed.
If Sol was going to build another Phased Antimatter Bomb, they couldn't use it as a deterrent without demonstrating it, first. Really demonstrating it, unambiguously, shockingly, in a way that made their enemies feel the demonstration like a punch to the human gut. Oh, sure, Alpha Centauri or Sirius or CN Leonis could point their telescopes at UV Ceti IV and see only an orbiting cloud of debris, but that would be to easy to write off as a fluke or a hoax or a natural disaster.
No, Sol would have to make a more effective demonstration of the Phased Antimatter Bomb. They'd have to set one off in full view of their enemies, the closer to home the better. They might even . . .
His eyes grew wide with horror . . .
They might even choose to "demonstrate" their new toy on Alpha Centauri A III itself.
"There's not a man or woman alive who didn't, at some point in his or her life — however brief that point might have been — believe in the Henderson Doctrine."
He gasped, caught himself, turned his head away briefly — and found himself looking straight into the 3-D poster of Cronazza Heap on his wall.
"Ship?"
The nearest display read, "I'm listening."
"We have a copy of the plans for the Mad Scientist's Phased Antimatter device on file, don't we?"
"Yes."
Jerry chuckled. Their mission orders were self-destructing, to prevent them from falling into enemy hands; yet the far more valuable plans for the Phased Antimatter experiment itself were free for the taking. No one ever accused the SBI of being infallable decisionmakers.
"How far are we from each of the five nation star systems?"
"Sol, 8.6 light-years; Sirius, 10.2 light-years; Alpha Centauri, 10.3 light-years; Human-Centauri, 12.2 light-years; CN Leonis, 15.4 light-years."
"Transmit the complete Phased Antimatter device plans, and all recently uploaded information on the experiment, on high-power tight beam to the following locations: Earth, Alpha Centauri A three, CN Leonis two, Sirius A four, and Human-Centauri one. Repeat the transmission several times to be sure each star system receives it error-free. And tell each system that I've sent the same message to the other four."
"Confirmed."
"Oh, oh, wait! But don't start transmitting to the closer star systems until the signal to the more distant ones has had time to get part of the way there. Uh, you see what I'm saying? I want you to stagger the transmissions so they all arrive where they're each individually going at the same time. Got it?"
"Understood. Project five points along our course to Sol such that transmission from said points will reach each of five star systems simultaneously. First transmission will be from present location at present time, aimed at CN Leonis II. Shall I commence?"
Jerry hesitated. Then, he shook his head in determination. This had to be done. Even though he'd sworn his allegiance to the Solar Federal Government when he joined the SBI, giving them sole ownership of the bomb-to-end-all-bombs was like giving dynamite to a frustrated five-year-old. At least if all the nation-systems had such a device, the threat of mutually assured destruction would make them think twice before committing genocide. "Commence the transmission program," he affirmed.
A few indicator lights flashed on, indicating that the interstellar transmitter was in operation.
"Good God, I actually did it," Jerry mumbled. "Sol is going to kill me."
And then it hit him. Sol probably would kill him. He'd just committed an act of high treason, and was about to commit three more in timed sequence. Going back to Sol was out of the question. Perhaps, though, one of the systems he'd leaked this information to would be grateful enough to grant him asylum.
"I want to change course," he told the ship. "Reset the destination to Alpha Centauri A three."
"New destination of Alpha Centauri A III confirmed. Do you wish to continue accelerating at 1 g, and switch to optimum-speed acceleration of 3.4 g when in submetabolic sleep?"
"Yes, yes, keep everything else the same."
"Estimated time en route 12 years 8 months. New points for simultaneous receipt of requested transmission have been assigned along projected course. You may enter your individual chamber when ready for submetabolic sleep."
This time, he didn't stop on his way to his hibertation coffin. He climbed in and watched the lid inch closed above him. Now all he could do was wait. From what little he remembered of the last time he'd been in submetabolic sleep, he wouldn't have to wait for long. . . .
The Pentagon War is continued in chapter 3.
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