[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction June 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Granthan's mission was the most vital of the war.
It would mean instant victory--but for whom?
I
In the dream I was swimming in a river of white fire and the dream went
on and on. And then I was awake--and the fire was still there, fiercely
burning at me.
I tried to move to get away from the flames, and then the real pain
hit me. I tried to go back to sleep and the relative comfort of the
river of fire, but it was no go. For better or worse, I was alive and
conscious.
I opened my eyes and took a look around. I was on the floor next to
an unpadded acceleration couch--the kind the Terrestrial Space Arm
installs in seldom-used lifeboats. There were three more couches, but
no one in them. I tried to sit up. It wasn't easy but, by applying a
lot more will-power than should be required of a sick man, I made it.
I took a look at my left arm. Baked. The hand was only medium rare,
but the forearm was black, with deep red showing at the bottom of the
cracks where the crisped upper layers had burst....
There was a first-aid cabinet across the compartment from me. I
tried my right leg, felt broken bone-ends grate with a sensation
that transcended pain. I heaved with the other leg, scrabbled with
the charred arm. The crawl to the cabinet dwarfed Hillary's trek
up Everest, but I reached it after a couple of years, and found the
microswitch on the floor that activated the thing, and then I was
fading out again....
* * * * *
I came out of it clear-headed but weak. My right leg was numb, but
reasonably comfortable, clamped tight in a walking brace. I put up
a hand and felt a shaved skull, with sutures. It must have been a
fracture. The left arm--well, it was still there, wrapped to the
shoulder and held out stiffly by a power truss that would keep the scar
tissue from pulling up and crippling me. The steady pressure as the
truss contracted wasn't anything to do a sense-tape on for replaying at
leisure moments, but at least the cabinet hadn't amputated. I wasn't
complaining.
As far as I knew, I was the first recorded survivor of contact with the
Gool--if I survived.
I was still a long way from home, and I hadn't yet checked on the
condition of the lifeboat. I glanced toward the entry port. It was
dogged shut. I could see black marks where my burned hand had been at
work.
I fumbled my way into a couch and tried to think. In my condition--with
a broken leg and third-degree burns, plus a fractured skull--I
shouldn't have been able to fall out of bed, much less make the trip
from _Belshazzar's_ CCC to the boat; and how had I managed to dog that
port shut? In an emergency a man was capable of great exertions. But
running on a broken femur, handling heavy levers with charred fingers
and thinking with a cracked head were overdoing it. Still, I was
here--and it was time to get a call through to TSA headquarters.
I flipped the switch and gave the emergency call-letters Col. Ausar
Kayle of Aerospace Intelligence had assigned to me a few weeks before.
It was almost five minutes before the "acknowledge" came through from
the Ganymede relay station, another ten minutes before Kayle's face
swam into view. Even through the blur of the screen I could see the
haggard look.
"Granthan!" he burst out. "Where are the others? What happened out
there?" I turned him down to a mutter.
"Hold on," I said. "I'll tell you. Recorders going?" I didn't wait for
an answer--not with a fifteen-minute transmission lag. I plowed on:
"_Belshazzar_ was sabotaged. So was _Gilgamesh_--I think. I got out. I
lost a little skin, but the aid cabinet has the case in hand. Tell the
Med people the drinks are on me."
I finished talking and flopped back, waiting for Kayle's reply. On the
screen, his flickering image gazed back impatiently, looking as hostile
as a swing-shift ward nurse. It would be half an hour before I would
get his reaction to my report. I dozed off--and awoke with a start.
Kayle was talking.
"--your report. I won't mince words. They're wondering at your role in
the disaster. How does it happen that you alone survived?"
"How the hell do I know?" I yelled--or croaked. But Kayle's voice was
droning on:
"... you Psychodynamics people have been telling me the Gool may
have some kind of long-range telehypnotic ability that might make it
possible for them to subvert a loyal man without his knowledge. You've
told me yourself that you blacked out during the attack--and came to on
the lifeboat, with no recollection of how you got there.
"This is war, Granthan. War against a vicious enemy who strike without
warning and without mercy. You were sent out to investigate the
possibility of--what's that term you use?--hyper-cortical invasion. You
know better than most the risk I'd be running if you were allowed to
pass the patrol line.
"I'm sorry, Granthan. I can't let you land on Earth. I can't accept
the risk."
"What do I do now?" I stormed. "Go into orbit and eat pills and hope
you think of something? I need a doctor!"
Presently Kayle replied. "Yes," he said. "You'll have to enter a
parking orbit. Perhaps there will be developments soon which will make
it possible to ... ah ... restudy the situation." He didn't meet my
eye. I knew what he was thinking. He'd spare me the mental anguish of
knowing what was coming. I couldn't really blame him; he was doing
what he thought was the right thing. And I'd have to go along and
pretend--right up until the warheads struck--that I didn't know I'd
been condemned to death.