Chapter 17
“My name is Hubbard, sir,” the new man put in in a nervous, jerky voice. “Political Officer from the late Resolution. It isn’t over, exactly—but it amounts to the same thing. Neither side has the resources, technical, material or personnel, to go on with it.”
“Political Officer?” asked Warren dully. It was a completely new rank to him, and even though he felt that the planet had just been pulled from under his feet the process of satisfying his curiosity was automatic.
The position had been created because of the growing distrust of the field commanders by High Command, Hubbard explained, the situation being aggravated by the accelerating breakdown of all military organization and communications. In part this was due to the incredibly poor quality of present officer material, it being the accepted thing these days to refuse rather than force battle with the enemy. The men just would not fight—although in honesty Hubbard said that this was due to distrust of their own ships and equipment as much as inner qualms. Despite this the officers on space service had been built up as heroes by home propaganda in an attempt to boost the war effort, and this had given some of the field commanders a very nice idea.
Not just as single ships but in flotillas and whole Sector sub-fleets they had simply opted out of the war. But they had not gone home. Instead they had taken themselves to some of the colony worlds—planets with small populations and light defenses—and as heroes place their worlds under their protection. Or held them to ransom, or tried to carve small, personal empires out of them, depending on the characteristics of the commander concerned and the number of units he possessed whose captains were personally loyal to him. It was Hubbard’s duty, and the duty of the other political officers serving with the remains of the fleet, constantly to remind the ships’ personnel where there true loyalty lay, because not only the military organization but the whole of Earths interstellar culture was rapidly falling to pieces. And it was no comfort at all to know that the Bugs were having the same trouble.
“… The Fleet Commander has told me what you’re trying to do and I think it’s tremendous!” Hubbard rushed on. “But it is a complete waste of live and effort, sir, believe me. What remains of our military organization is scarcely capable of mounting an offensive patrol much less a rescue operation of the rest of the prisoners! You’ve got a nice, tight organization here, sir. You’d be better advised to stay put and—”
“Peters,” said Warren suddenly, “how many people know about this?”
The Fleet Commander smiled. He said, “Give me credit for a little intelligence, sir. Nobody but ourselves. Releasing it to your people in the present frame of mind would not be smart. I thought you had better handle it, break it to them gently after a long series of Holds…”
“Sloan!”
The Major charged into the room, his cross-bow unslung and ready, eyes glaring. Harshly, Warren said, “Put these men under close arrest. They are not to be allowed to speak. They are to be confined separately so that they cannot attempt subversion by talking to each other and allowing their seditious talk to be overheard. They are not to say ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Thank you’ when meals are served. If they utter one word they are to be killed.”
“Yes sir!” said Sloan.
“You … you can’t,” began Peters incredulously. “You’re mad, power mad…!”
The words were choked off as in response to Warren’s nod Sloan brought up his weapon, aimed at the center of the Commander’s forehead and pulled the trigger. The bolt thudded into a log two feet above the Commander’s head because at the penultimate instant Warren had used the heel of his hand to jar the Major’s elbow.
“You are not to speak at all,” he said quietly. “Is that understood?”
Second thoughts and last-minute changes of plan were dangerous, Warren told himself firmly, and a decision taken calmly and unhurriedly should not be altered because of them—especially if they arose because of cowardice, selfishness or the possibility of taking an easy way out. But he gave the final Go signal within minutes of Peters and Hubbard being marched out because he did not want to give himself time to think anyway…
The last few yards of the main tunnel were opened to the surface while the wooden framework of the dummy was going up around it. These massive, hoop-like timber sections—prefabricated, numbered for ease of assembly and stored in town many months previously—were rushed out to the Escape site by gangs of as many as twenty men in each section. Their route was a straight line from town to the site, but no attempt was made to conceal their tracks in the soft earth because it would later be burned over to look like the scar of a C-7 blast. And while the framework was being assembled, at a pace which could only be described as furious despite the frequent measurement checks, smaller parties were carefully setting alight the farmhouse which was supposed to be burned by the force-landed ship and to the trees and undergrowth sheltering the two forward attack points.
These positions had to appear to be razed to the ground, but at the same time the scorched tree-trunks, bushes, and log walls had to give concealment to a large number of men. While this carefully supervised destruction was going on, survey teams with mirrors, flags and extremely loud voices were checking the alignment of trees in the section due for burning. Some were marked down for fire-paste and others, those nearest the site, to be blown down with explosives while literally thousands of small trees and bushes had sheets of paper impaled and tied onto a conspicuous branch in such a way that they would burn off but not flow off in a wind, and these were ignited by torch. Simultaneously the grass and brush and the more inflammable species of trees along the edges of the fire lanes were being wetted down with water carried from the bay, the marsh or the nearby stream. Some of it had to be carried, in great hide gourds slung on poles, for more than three miles.
On no account could the conflagration so soon to take place be allowed to get out of control, to look like an ordinary, naturally occurring forest fire…
And through the smoke haze from the burning farm the helio on Nicholson’s post blinked out a constant stream of progress reports. The dummy’s lock section had left its mountain and was halfway to the coast. The stabilizers were twenty minutes behind it. The last of the hull sections had left Hutton’s Mountain. Weather forecast was for no change in wind velocity or direction, but there was a possibility of cloud around dawn. Hutton was having trouble with a temperamental Battler at the head of his convoy and was twenty-five minutes behind schedule. Hutton had turned the Battler loose and was having its load pulled by the extra men he had brought along for just this contingency. The lock sections had been loaded on their cart and it was at sea, winds favorable. Hutton had pickup up ten minutes by Johnson’s Bridge, and it was observed that he was helping to pull the lead wagon. A small cat fleet had rendezvoused at Chang’s Inlet and the smaller metal sections dispersed among the cliff caves there were being ferried out to them. One of the boats capsized in the shallows. Its load had been dragged ashore and transferred to another boat—estimated delay forty-five minutes. The first cat was hull up on the horizon. The head of Hutton’s convoy was not five hours away… The helio stopped blinking because the sun was suddenly down among the trees. There was perhaps an hour of useable dusk left, then the remainder of the work would have to be done by torchlight. The signals resumed, using a focused oil-lamp and shutter. With a red-orange light which gave overtones of anger to everything it said, Nicholson’s post gave the news that the guardship would rise in eight hours and seventeen minutes.