The pilot grinned. “You must have thrown a classic, Colonel Mathers.”
“I guess so. Don’t call me Colonel. I’m a damned civilian now. What time is it? No, that doesn’t make any difference. What’s the date?”
Pierpont told him and then added, “You’ll always be Colonel Mathers to me, sir. I have your photo-graph above my bed, and in the cockpit of my Scout.”
The date was hard to believe. The last he could remember, he had been with Di. With Dian in some nightclub. He wondered how long ago that had been.
He growled at the lieutenant, “Well, how go the One Man Scouts?”
Pierpont grinned back at him. “Glad to be out of them, sir?”
“Usually.”
Pierpont looked at him strangely. He said, “I don’t blame you, sir. But it isn’t as bad as it used to be when you were still in the Space Service, Colonel.”
Don grunted at that opinion. He said, “How come? Two weeks to a month, all by yourself, watching the symptoms of space cafard progress. Then three weeks of leave to get drunk in, get laid in, and then another stretch in deep space.”
The pilot snorted in deprecation. “That’s the way it used to be,” he said. He fingered the spoon in his coffee cup. “That’s the way it still should be, of course. But it isn’t. They’re spreading the duty around now and I spend less than one week out of four on patrol.”
Don hadn’t been listening too closely, but now he looked up. “What’d ya mean?”
Pierpont said, “I mean, sir—I suppose this isn’t bridging security, seeing who you are, but fuel stocks are running so low, in spite of all your efforts, that we can’t maintain full patrols any more, especially of the Monitors and the other larger spacecraft.”
There was a cold emptiness in Don Mathers* stomach.
He said, “Look, I’m still woozy. Say that again, Lieutenant.”
The lieutenant told him again.
Don Mathers rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth and tried to think.
He said, finally, “Look, Lieutenant, first let’s get another cup of coffee into me and maybe that sandwich you were talking about. And then would you help me to get back to my place?”
He might be drunk, and he might not be up on the inner workings of the Donal Mathers Radioactives Corporation, but he knew damn well that production of uranium had zoomed since its founding.
XVIII
It took him four days, even with the aid of Anti-Ale and some Vitamin B-Complex shots. During that period, he kept in seclusion, not even seeing Alicia.
And during the four days, something that Eric Hansen had said to him came back, and with it some of the things Thor Bjornsen had said.
When he had gotten to the point where his hands no longer trembled, he cleaned himself up thoroughly, ate a good breakfast, dressed carefully, then went into his study. He sat down at the desk and looked into the Library booster screen. He dialed the Interplanetary Data Banks and then Information.
A sharp-looking young man’s face faded in and Don said, “Run off all the video-tapes that were taken of the battle between the Kradens and the four Earth fleets, fifty years ago.”
The young man widened his eyes. He said, “Just a moment, sir.”
His face faded to be replaced shortly by an older man’s. This one wore the uniform of a space admiral.
He said, “Colonel Mathers! What a pleasure to speak to you.”
Don said, “Great. I want to see all of the videotapes taken of the battle between the Kradens and the Earth fleets, half a century ago.”
The other frowned. He said, carefully, “Well, actually, Colonel, we have an edited version, which runs for approximately one hour, that is for public consumption. I imagine you saw it as a cadet at the Space Academy.”
“Yes, I did,” Don said impatiently. “That’s not what I want. I want the complete unedited tapes, every one taken.”
“I assure you, Colonel Mathers, due to the pressures and excitement at the time, those video-tapes were photographed in most haphazard and slipshod fashion. Literally scores of different cameras were trained on the fight at one time or the other.” He gave a small laugh. “Later, some were to find that they had forgotten to put tapes in the cameras. Others found… Well, at any rate, Colonel, they’re a hodgepodge. I’m glad I didn’t have the job of editing them into the coherent story.”
Don said, “Nevertheless, I want to see them all.”
The fleet admiral stared at him for a long moment. Finally, he said, “I am most sorry, Colonel, but some of the video-tapes are restricted, for security reasons.”
Don said, “I am Donal Mathers, as you well know, and I wish to see those video-tapes. Are you suggesting that I am not cleared for highest security? If you do not begin screening those video-tapes for me immediately, I shall get in touch with President Kwame Kumasi of the Solar System League and we will soon find if there is anything in the Interplanetary Data Banks so restricted that a holder of the Galactic Medal of Honor can’t see it. I shall further suggest to the President and to the media that in my estimation you are incompetent.”
The fleet admiral gave up, his face resigned. “Very well, Colonel. However, I have one request. When you are through, please call me again. I will wish to discuss them with you.”
Don leaned back in his chair. “The video-tapes, please. All of them.”
Within moments, they began flashing on the screen. There were hours upon hours of them. Evidently, all four of the Earth space fleets had taken tape after tape. The space admiral had been correct, many of them, probably most of them, were a mess. Some consisted of nothing whatsoever save shots of empty space.
But some…
Thor Bjornsen was right. It had been a balls-up.
The four Earth fleets, those of the United States, Common Europe, the Soviet Complex and China, had zeroed-in like madmen, all firing everything they had, missiles, laser beams, flakflak guns of all categories, firing wildly.
There was no sign he could make out of the Kradens firing back, although, of course, there was always some chance of them using weapons that were undetectable with Earth equipment.
Don flinched when he saw a Common Europe cruiser misdirect a laser beam and cut entirely through a Chinese cruiser, and winced again when two American Two Man Scouts crashed headlong into each other.
The Kradens, seemingly completely confused at this hysterical attack, broke their original neat formation, at first sped up unbelievingly, and then disappeared, leaving only the smoldering hulks of their destroyed craft behind.
But the hysterical shooting, beaming and launching of nuclear missiles continued on for possibly an hour more. Spacecraft of the four fleets darted about, firing, sometimes colliding.
It was the most horrifying spectacle Don Mathers had ever witnessed, and the most senseless. Thor Bjornsen had been right. Those so-called Kradens had not been a military expedition. What they had been, only the Almighty Ultimate knew. Merchants or ambassadors attempting to contact other intelligent life forms? Who could know? And then another truth came home to him. That Kraden derelict which he had beamed over and over with his flakflak gun. It hadn’t been a new arrival. Not even, as Thor had tried to figure out, a new missionary to attempt to establish contact with the aggressive human race. It had been a leftover from the first conflict. It had been destroyed in the first contact and had been drifting in space for half a century, undetected. He didn’t know, but possibly the Kradens had devices, still operative over all the decades, that could repulse Earth type sensors. Or possibly their crafts were made of some material that radar wouldn’t pick up.
When it was all over, he flicked off the screen and sank back into his chair. All his instincts were to go to the auto-bar and dial himself a bottle; but he didn’t. He had to think.