She called up the memory of Karlavi’s land, where he had now lain for sixty-two years. Reeds whispered along the shores of Rovaniemi, the wind made a rippling in long grass, and it was time again for the lampflowers to blow, all down the valley. Dreamlike at the edge of vision, the snowpeaks of the High Mikkela floated in an utter blue.
I’m coming back, Karlavi, she thought.
In her screen, the nearer vessels were glinting toys, plunging through emptiness. The further ones were not visible at this low magnification. Only the senses of radar, gravpulse, and less familiar creations, analyzed by whirling electrons in a computer bank, gave any approach to reality. But she could listen in on the main intercom line to the bridge if she chose, and hear those data spoken. She flipped the switch. Nothing yet, only routine reports. Had the planet’s disc grown a trifle?
Have I been wrong all the time? she thought. Her heart stopped for a second.
Then: “Alert! Condition red! Alert! Condition red! Objects detected, approaching nine-thirty o’clock, fifteen degrees high. Neutrino emissions indicate nuclear engines.”
“Alert! Condition yellow! Quiescent object detected in orbit about target planet, two-thirty o’clock, ten degrees low, circa 75.000 kilometers distant. Extremely massive. Repeat, quiescent. Low level of nuclear activity, but at bolo-metric temperature of ambient space. Possibly an abandoned space fortress, except for being so massive.”
“Detected objects identified as space craft. Approaching with average radial velocity of 250 KPS. No evident deceleration. Number very large, estimated at five thousand. All units small, about the mass of our scoutboats.”
The gabble went on until Golyev’s voice cut through: “Attention! Fleet Admiral to bridge of all units. Now hear this.” Sardonically “The opposition is making a good try. Instead of building any real ships — they could only have constructed a few at best — they've turned out thousands of manned warboats. Their plan is obviously to cut through our formation, relying on speed, and release tracking torps in quantity. Stand by to repel. We have enough detectors, antimissiles, negafields, to overwhelm them in this department too. Once past us, the boats will need hours to decelerate and come back within decent shooting range. By that time we should be in orbit around the planet. Be alert for possible emergencies, of course. But I only expect standard operations will be necessary. Good shooting!”
Elva strained close to her screen. All at once she saw the Vaynamoan fleet, sparks, but a horde of them, twinkling among the stars. Closer! Her fingers strained against each other. They must have some plan, she told herself. If I’m blown up in five minutes — I was hoping I’d get down to you, Karlavi. But if I don’t, goodbye, goodbye.
The fleets neared each other: on the one side, ponderous dreadnaughts, cruisers, auxiliary warcraft, escorting swarms of transport and engineer ships; on the opposite side, needle-thin boats whose sole armor was velocity. The guns of Chertkoi swung about, hoping for a lucky hit. At such speeds it was improbable. The fleets would interpenetrate and pass in a fractional second. The Vaynamoans could not be blasted until they came to grips near their home world. However, if a nuclear shell should find its mark now — what a blaze in heaven!
The flagship staggered.
“Engine room to bridge. What’s happened?”
“Bridge to engine room. Gimme some power there! What in all destruction —?”
“Sharyats to Askol. Sharyats to Askol. Am thrown off course. Accelerating. What’s going on?”
“Look out!”
“Fodorev to Zuevots! Look alive, you bloody fool! You’ll ram us!”
Cushioned by the internal field, Elva felt only the minutest fraction of that immense velocity change. Even so a wave of sickness went through her. She clutched at the bunk stanchion. The desk ripped from a loose mooring and crashed into the wall, which buckled. The deck split open underfoot. A roar went through the entire hull, ribs groaned as they bent, plates screamed as they sheared. A girder snapped in twain and spat sharp fragments among a gun turret crew. A section broke apart, air gushed out, a hundred men died before the sealing bulkheads could close.
After a moment, the stabilizing energies regained interior control. The images on Elva’s screen steadied. She drew a shaken lungful of air and watched. Out of formation, the Askol plunged within a kilometer of her sister ship the Zuevots — just when that cyclopean hull smashed into the cruiser Fodorev. Fire sheeted as accumulator banks were shorted. The two giants crumpled, glowed white at the point of impact, fused, and spun off in a lunatic waltz. Men and supplies pinwheeled from the cracks gaping in them. Two gun turrets wrapped their long barrels around each other like intertwining snakes. Then the whole mess struck a third vessel. Steel chunks exploded into space.
Through the noise and the human screaming, Golyev’s voice blasted. “Pipe down there! Belay that! By Creation, I’ll shoot the next man who whimpers! The enemy will be here in a minute. All stations, by the numbers, report.”
A measure of discipline returned. These were fighting men. Instruments fingered outward, the remaining computers whirred, minds made deductive leaps, gunners returned to their posts. The Vaynamoan fleet passed through, and the universe exploded in brief pyrotechnics. Many a Chertkoian ship died then, its defenses too battered, its defenders too stunned to ward off the tracking torpedoes. But others fought back, saved themselves, and saw their enemies vanish in the distance.
Still they tumbled off course, their engines helpless to free them. Elva heard a physicists clipped tones give the deduction from his readings. The entire fleet had been caught in a cone of gravitational force emanating from that massive object detected in orbit. Like a maelstrom of astronomical dimensions, it had snatched them from their paths. Those closest and in the most intense field strength — a fourth of the armada — had been wrecked by sheer deceleration. Now the force was drawing them down the vortex of itself.
“But that's impossible!” wailed the Askol’s chief engineer. “A gravity attractor beam of that magnitude… Admiral, it can’t be done! The power requirements would bum out any generator in a microsecond!”
“If s being done,” said Golyev harshly. “Maybe they figured out a new way to feed energy into a space distorter. Now, where are those figures on intensity? And my slide rule...Yeh. The whole fleet will soon be in a field so powerful that — Well, we won’t let it happen. Stand by to hit that generator with everything we’ve got.”
“But sir... we must have — I don’t know how many ships — close enough to it now to be within total destruction radius.”
“Tough on them. Standby. Gunnery Control, fire when ready.’’
And then, whispered, even though that particular line was private and none else in the ship would hear: “Elva. Are you all right down there? Elva!”
Her hands had eased their trembling enough for her to light a cigarette. She didn’t speak. Let him worry. It might reduce his efficiency.
Her screen did not happen to face the vortex source and thus did not show its destruction by the nuclear barrage. Not that that could have registered. The instant explosion of sun-center ferocity transcended any sense, human or electronic. Down on Vaynamo surface, in broad daylight, they must have turned dazzled eyes from that brilliance. Anyone within a thousand kilometers of those warheads died, no matter how much steel and force field he had interposed. Twoscore Chertkoian ships were suddenly manned by corpses. Those further in were fused to lumps. Still further in, they ceased to exist save as gas at millions of degrees temperature. The vessels already crashed on the giant station were turned into unstable isotopes, their very atoms dying.