The Captain turned back to look at the now swelling sea. The air off the
water was cool and brisk and the deck of his ship moved comfortably
under his feet; a solid thing in a liquid world.
"It doesn't make a great deal of difference what we think, Lieutenant,"
the Captain said, a little of his good humor restored. "In the long run,
we'll do whatever Washington says."
There was a sudden, flashing glow just over the horizon. McCandless
blanched and the Captain clutched the rail, his knuckles turning white
with the force of his grip. There was another flash and the OD popped
out of the hatch of the wheelhouse like a cork out of a bottle.
"Captain! the ..."
The Captain was already brushing past him, heading into the pilothouse
for the television screen and the picture that the drone plane was
transmitting.
The picture on the screen wavered and blurred with the shock of the
action. From what he could see, the Captain knew that whatever action he
took, if any, he would have to take it within a relative few minutes.
The forward half of the superstructure of the _Josef_ was a smoking
ruin, the metal a cherry red.
Half the planes on the flight deck were charred and being frantically
pushed overboard by small tractors so the remainder of the planes could
be airborne. A mile overhead, in the glazing blue sky, the few planes
the _Josef_ had managed to launch buzzed futilely about the alien ship,
discharging rockets that scintillated and flamed off the dull gray sides
and, so far as the Captain could tell, were causing no damage at all.
"Message for you, sir."
He felt the clip board being pushed into his hand, then glanced down. It
was difficult to read without his glasses but he could make it out.
_Unusual ... do nothing rash ... your discretion ..._
Some cautious pen pusher behind a desk, he thought chaotically. Somebody
for whom miles had lent safety and detachment.
_His_ discretion ...
It was his responsibility.
* * * * *
Commander Davis was at his elbow. "The _Josef_'s starting to list,
Captain."
"I can see that!" he half snarled.
He wouldn't feel pity if the _Josef_ went down, he thought fiercely. It
would be good riddance, one less carrier that they would have to worry
about at some future date.
If there was some future date, a nagging thought intruded.
He throttled it. The _Josef_ stood for everything that he despised, a
way of life that had made a mockery of everything he had been taught to
believe in. The menace that had eaten at the world's vitals like a
cancer, the menace whose existence had been enough to drive some men to
hysteria and others to the brink of suicide. His own wife ...
Now a ship from Outside was attacking that power and what emotions
should he feel? Elation? Well, why not? What other emotions should he
feel? Certainly not sadness, not regret, not pity.
The _Josef_ would be sunk and maybe the aliens would be tempted to do
more than just attack the _Josef_; they might attack the entire Combine
as well. And if the Combine was beat, did it matter who did it?
Except, the thought crept back, there was no reason for him to believe
that the aliens would differentiate between the _Josef_ and the _Oahu_,
between the Combine and the United States.
"The planes!" McCandless said, incredulous. "Look at the planes!"
The Captain glanced down at the screen again. An orangish glow was
suffusing the alien ship. A jet slipped in for a rocket shot. The glow
pulsed, expanded, touched the jet, and the plane vanished into a rain of
wreckage that sped towards the ocean below.
"God!" Davis breathed. "Did you see that?"
The Captain only half heard him. So they were aliens. What did that
mean? Beings of different background, different beliefs, different
physical structure? He had been one of the first into Berlin after the
massacre was over and the Combine had laid the blame on their Berlin
Commandant, though it was painfully obvious that he had only followed
out instructions. And the shambles he had seen there couldn't have been
done by human beings. Four thousand soldiers and close to a hundred
thousand civilians killed. Would you call the people who had been
responsible for that human beings or ... aliens? Which name fit best?
The Berlin war ...
A dozen different outbreaks, starting with Korea so long ago ...
And then you were supposed to admit that they were blood brothers after
all, and that in the face of a mutual threat you should forget your
differences and pool your resources against the common enemy.
"There goes another one!"
So in fifteen minutes the _Josef_ would go down. And from him it would
bring only cheers, not tears.
But you didn't make decisions on a personal basis, he thought slowly.
You had to look at it from the viewpoint of a thousand years. You had to
develop a certain detachment, even though one man's lifetime was far too
short a period to develop it in.
"Message for you, Captain."
It was a voice message that had been picked up in CIC. It was brief and
to the point.
_Attention Captain United States Vessel_ Oahu:
_Help urgently requested. If aid not granted immediately, all is
lost._
_Constantin Simenovich,
Captain, People's Warship_ Josef Dzugashvili.
He had a brief mental picture of a young man lying in the shambles of
Berlin calling out the same words. And what had he received?
He buried the thought.
The detached viewpoint. Political systems evolved, he thought, they
never remained the same. The French Revolution had spawned a thousand
human monsters and the blood had run in the streets. But out of it all
had come a democratic nation. And a thousand years from now, what would
the Combine be? A turn of the wheel and perhaps it would be a
peace-loving democracy while the United States would be the abattoir of
human hopes. Who could tell? A thousand years from now the present
bloodbaths and tortures and mass deaths would be history.
But if the aliens won you ran the chance of there being no history at
all.
The wheelhouse was silent. The Captain could feel a dozen pairs of eyes
watching him, waiting for his decision. Outside the ports, on the far
horizon, there came a steady, golden pulsing.
He looked up at McCandless and Davis. McCandless was young, too
inexperienced to realize that situations where today's enemies are
tomorrow's friends are the order of the day and not the exception. You
adjusted to it or you became bitter. Davis, the gutless bastard, had
adjusted to it. He was probably already to make the switch, to go back
to drinking toasts in vodka.
The detached viewpoint.
"Send up the jets," the Captain said slowly. "And send a message to the
Captain of the _Josef_, telling him we'll render all the assistance that
we can."
The wheelhouse broke into a flurry of activity and a moment later he
could hear the sounds of the jets taking off the flight deck. He walked
out on the bridge deck and leaned on the railing, staring at the horizon
where the alien ship and the _Josef_ were fighting it out. And where
planes from the _Oahu_ would shortly be helping the _Josef_.
_But I still hate them_, he thought. _I hate their goddamned souls!_
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Space Science Fiction_ September 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.