Fortune’s forehead was ice cold. “Number four! That’s one of the satellites officially ascribed to Russia, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is. It’s bound to be, but if you looked it up in the Russian records, you’d find it ascribed to the States or Britain or France….”
“Bill, stop talking. I’ve a new proposition for you. How much to shoot it down?”
There was a long silence before Geissler spoke. His voice was gentle. “I know what you want, John, but there isn’t any need now. You can go to UNO with this….”
“That would take weeks—I’m talking about tonight.”
“It’s illegal.”
“To shoot down a Nesster satellite? Or are you not sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure.”
“Or maybe you can’t do it?”
“You needn’t try to needle me, Fatso. It won’t work. If I ever did something like this it would be for the publicity.”
There’ll be plenty of that, Fortune thought as panic geysered through his system. I’ve got to back out right now while there’s still time. “That’s more like it,” he said aloud. “Start getting things ready right now. I’ll be over as soon as I can get there.”
He set the phone down and looked up to see Christine standing in the doorway looking strangely small, defeated. “You always were impatient, John—it’s the only thing about you that hasn’t changed. You’ve been trying to eat yourself to death, but that takes too long….”
“You don’t understand this, Christine.”
“The thing I don’t understand is why—if you can’t face the action tomorrow—don’t you do something less damaging to Peter and me? Shooting yourself in the foot is the usual thing, isn’t it?”
“You’re so far away from me that words just couldn’t get there, Chris. Why can you not see it? Nessters are …”
“… people,” Christine cut in. “Nobody can talk to you, John. You don’t communicate. Nessters are people. People aren’t property. It’s a syllogism that goes nowhere.”
Fortune moved forward and took her awkwardly by the shoulders. He drew her in and she came submissively but twisted her head away from the kiss.
“Really, darling,” she said coldly, ‘that only helps on television. I’m not going to let you go through with this, you know.”
“I know it hasn’t been working out,” he said desperately, ‘but if we ever had anything—you’ve got to give me the next few hours.”
Fortune walked away from her quickly, automatically retrieved his cap, and plunged out into the cool, impartial brightness of the afternoon. As the big car broadsided, with turbine howling, out on to the road he risked a backwards glance through the rowan trees. Christine’s yellow dress glowed dimly in the window of his study. She was standing at the telephone.
Geissler Orbital Deliveries’ main stock-in-trade was an obsolete sixteen-inch coastal defence gun which, as had always been customary for the gun-launching of research projectiles, had been smooth-bored out by an extra half inch. For some missions eight-inch diameter missiles were used, their fins fitting snugly into the gun barrel. These were centred by plastic packing pieces and a circular steel pusher plate trapped the propellant gases underneath them in the barrel, enabling muzzle velocities of over five thousand feet a second to be obtained. Other missions used full-diameter projectiles with fins which flipped out after they had cleared the barrel. In all cases the projectiles’ motors ignited near apogee, efficiently boosting the package into orbit after the denser air strata had been left behind. The system was cheap and reliable, and although accelerations of thousands of gravities were experienced techniques had been developed permitting a wide range of experiments to stand the pace.
Fortune stood uneasily in Geissler’s clinical-looking payload assembly laboratory. There were no pockets in the lint-free coverall Geissler had made him wear and with nowhere to put his hands he longed either to smoke or eat. Geissler stood beside him, similarly clad, his dark bandit’s face ploughed with worry as he watched two technicians carry out checks on the new package.
“I’m not an electronics man,” Geissler said, ‘but let’s assume that you’re right and that Project PULP simply failed to pick up transmissions from the Nesster satellite. Can you be certain that knocking it out will be enough? Perhaps each planet’s scout satellite beams either a ‘come in’ or a ‘stay out’, in which case termination of the ‘come in’ signal won’t be enough to stop the landings. The silence might be interpreted as transmitter failure or a meteor collision.”
Fortune shook his head. “In the first place, the ships are fully automated and self-contained so if they do any interpreting at all it certainly isn’t done on the basis of what happened to other ships that were years ahead in the line. It’s a simple response to the ‘come in’ signal. No signal, no response.”
“Yes, but it might not be enough to end that signal,” Geissler persisted. “Supposing, as I said, there’s a …”
“I don’t think there is a ‘stay out’ signal. It’s a question of reliability standards. Our own standards have improved tremendously in the last twenty-five years, but even now if we wanted to set up a similar scout satellite exercise we would have two signals. We couldn’t trust our own handiwork far enough to use a one-signal system in which a satellite going into orbit around an unsuitable planet simply remains quiet. The silence might be the result of a malfunctioning so we would demand a positive ‘stay out’ signal.
“But the Nessters don’t have reliability worries, not when they can build those ships. A one-signal system is the simplest and most logical for them. They don’t…”
“I’m convinced, I’m convinced!” Geissler shouted. “Don’t wear my ear out. Anyway, it’s less than two hours to the big bang—we’ll soon have the answer.”
Fortune peered out of the window, looking through his own reflection. A sharp, tiny moon was racing high and a blustery, rain-seeded wind had sprung up.
“Don’t worry about the weather,” Geissler said. “The missile will be clear of that stuff in a couple of seconds—this is where gun launching really pays off. And talking of paying …” The wall phone rang, he picked it up, listened in silence for a while then said, “Thank you, sweetie. I’ll tell him.” He set the phone back.
This one’s for me, Fortune told himself. Something I don’t want to happen is going to happen. He raised his eyebrows.
“That was Jenny calling from the house. She says there’s an army turbojeep pulling up to the main gate.”
Fortune went out through the laboratory’s clean-air lock into the main workshop and began unzipping the coverall. The idea was a difficult one for him to accept but, as far as the world at large was concerned, he was a deserter. It had not actually been desertion in the face of the enemy although in the special circumstances of the Nesster ‘invasion’ the point might be arguable. The puzzling thing was that they had got on to him so soon. He had quit the Unit’s headquarters at one thirty in the afternoon for a much needed sleep and had left the adjutant, Major Baillie, firmly in charge; and now—only seven hours later—an army vehicle had tracked him down to Geissler’s place.
Headquarters must have rung his home for an urgent decision and Christine had told them what she knew. Or perhaps she had taken the initiative and rung them. Both explanations were feasible and yet this vehicle drawing up ostentatiously in the night did not quite have the feel of Major Baillie about it. Baillie was a cautious man and Christine speaking to him would have put him in a delicate situation. He would have wanted to speak to Fortune by telephone or radio before ordering the arrest of a colonel—unless he had driven out personally to talk it over.