"And you haven't found out anything about him yet? Don't you know
what's wrong with these men?" Eckisster's voice was bland on the
surface, but there was a biting hardness underneath.
"We know what's wrong with them, sir," Bilford said stiffly; "we just
don't know what caused it."
"According to the electroencephaloscope readings, the electrical
activity of the prefrontal lobes is exhibiting a loop-feedback pattern.
It's going around in circles without getting anywhere. As far as
the nerve impulses are concerned, these men have been effectively
lobotomized--almost completely so."
"I see." Eckisster looked at the captain again. "Captain, stand up."
The captain stood. "Sit down." The officer sat. Eckisster rubbed a
plump finger over his chin. "That's according to the report, at least.
Would he kill himself if I asked him to?"
"Not if you _asked_ him to," Bilford said coldly. "He might if you
_told_ him to. Do you want me to try it?"
"Don't be ridiculous!" the general director snapped. He looked at
Roysland, who had been sitting quietly, waiting for Eckisster to
finish. "Roysland, do you have any idea of the nature of this weapon?"
"None, sir," Roysland said quietly. "Neither I nor the psychologists
have any idea what could do this to the human brain."
"Oh, no?" Eckisster's plump face smiled. "Haven't I heard something
about microwaves at high intensity?"
Roysland nodded. "Sure. I know what you mean. But I was talking about
doing it over a range of seven hundred million miles.
"We know that it can be done, but we don't know how the enemy did
it. Look at it this way: If we'd found every one of these men with
his skull bashed in, we could say that it had been done with a club.
But that still wouldn't explain how it was done from better than a
light-hour away."
"Besides," Bilford chipped in, "high intensity microwaves don't have
that effect. They affect the brain, sure--but not that way."
Eckisster nodded and folded his hands placidly. "I understand. Well,
gentlemen, I--" He stopped suddenly and looked to one side, out of the
range of his pickup. A voice said: "This facsimile just came in on the
ultrabeam, sir."
A hand materialized out of nowhere, holding a fac sheet; Eckisster took
it, unfolded it, and read it. His eyes opened a trifle wider, and he
looked up at Roysland.
"Roysland, they've used it again. The _Killiver_ was picked up this
side of the Noir Nebula, near Poulderr. They found her because of the
automatic signals. Every man aboard was just like Captain Whatsisname,
there. They're bringing the ship here, to Kandoris." He paused and
looked at both men in turn. "If this keeps up," he said, "they'll have
us whipped. It's your job to keep them from doing that. Now, you've got
several trails to follow. Follow them, and get some answers; that's
all."
His hand touched the arm rest of his chair, and abruptly the image
dissolved into transparent air.
Bilford looked at Roysland. "I don't like the way he keeps needling
people," he said. "It gets under my skin."
Roysland stood up. "He thinks that's the best way to get things done.
Maybe it is; I really don't know. I do agree with him in one respect:
we _have_ to do something--what, I don't know, but something.
"We've been fighting the Enlissa for eighteen years. Up until last
year, when we invented the _aJ_ gun, there hadn't been an improvement
on either side; they were winning because they had more ships.
"Then we get the _aJ_ gun functioning, and use it against them; and
when we do, it turns out that they have an even better weapon. I know
what they mean when they say war is hell."
He stopped and looked at the captain. "Well, let's get on with it; I
want to ask him a few questions."
* * * * *
Eighteen years of fighting hadn't seriously damaged either side,
insofar as actual loss of life was concerned. Men in ships had been
killed, of course, but no civilian had yet lost his life as a direct
result of the Enlissa-Human war. The Enlissa hadn't gotten in close
enough to occupied planets--yet.
But, until a year ago, it had seemed inevitable that they would. The
screen of ships that ranged around the periphery of the human-inhabited
section of the galaxy was getting thinner all the time. The Enlissa
had more ships, and, rather than make a direct attack, they seemed to
prefer to punch at the screen, weakening it steadily.
But the Enlissa had underestimated human ingenuity. Both sides had been
relying on the ultralight torpedoes to knock each other out of the sky,
and humanity had realized that they had to have something better. So
they had come up with the _aJ_ projector. If matter can be projected
through the no-space of ultralight velocities, why not energy?
The result was as devastating a heat beam as any dreamer could
logically expect; all the energy of a nuclear reaction focused along a
narrow locus of no-space toward the enemy ship. Even a shielded hull
gives under bombardment like that.
It looked as though the war was won. That is, it did until ships came
back with mindless crews.
The _Killiver_ was sitting in its launching cradle at the far side of
the ten-mile-square Grand Port of Kandoris. Roysland didn't bother to
take the tubeway; he flashed his credentials and commandeered a surface
jeep. Bilford had already taken charge of the crew, but Roysland wasn't
worried about _them_; he wanted a look at the ship.
The _Killiver_ was swarming with inspectors and special government
investigators. Roysland jumped out of the jeep as it slowed near the
giant sphere of the ship, and strode toward the ring of guards that
surrounded the globe.
One of the guards looked up at Roysland's huge frame and said: "May I
see your pass, sir?"
Roysland pulled out his pass and handed it to the guard.
The guard barely glanced at it; then he shook his head. "I'm sorry,
sir; this is a general pass. You'll have to get one of the special
passes for this ship. The Inspection Division has--"
"Where the devil do I get a pass?" Roysland snapped.
"You'll have to apply at Inspection," the guard said. "In person," he
added.
Roysland shook his hand. "I'm not going twelve miles back to
Administration. Who's in charge here?"
"Inspector Gowlan, sir."
"Call him; tell him Roysland Dwyn wants to see him."
The guard hesitated for a moment, then spoke softly into the
communicator on his wrist. The speaker in his ear buzzed a reply.
"He'll be right out," said the guard.
A moment later, a dark-haired, average-sized man in a chief inspector's
uniform fell through the drop chute from the ship and crossed the open
space toward Roysland. "Roysland Dwyn?" he said, holding out his hand.
"You're Special Weapons, aren't you? I'm Gowlan."
Roysland nodded and gripped the proffered hand in his own great paw.
"Glad to know you. I want to get on that ship."
The inspector shook his head. "'Fraid not ... not without a special
pass. We've got to make damage estimates."
"That ship is equipped with _aJ_ projectors," Roysland said. "My gang
designed and built them from the ground up; I know more about them
than you do. I want to see them--and the rest of the ship. I haven't
got time to go gallivanting all over this base getting signatures on a
blasted pass."
The inspector started to say something, but Roysland cut him off. "You
can check with Eckisster, if you want; but hurry it up."
Gowlan looked up into Roysland's eyes, hesitated, then spoke into his
wrist phone.
Less than two minutes later, Roysland was inside the ship.
* * * * *
The _Killiver_ was in almost perfect shape. The _aJ_ guns appeared to
be in perfect operating condition, and the meters showed that three
of them had tracked and fired at something that had passed the upper
starboard quadrant of the vessel.
Roysland checked the recordings, then looked up at Gowlan, who had
elected to follow him. "Any sign of the ship they were firing at?"
Gowlan shrugged. "The Space-fleet men didn't find anything. If the
_Killiver_ holed it, they would still probably be light-years away from
where the ship was found."
"What made them skitter off like that?"