THE HELMSMAN: Director's Cut Edition Read online

  Instead, he was greeted by bird-punctuated silence, broken now and then by heavy breathing — his and that of his two compatriots.

  Cautiously opening his eyes, he found himself confronted by nothing more threatening than all the lights on the vehicle blazing out as if it were the blackest darkness outside. That and a newly operational instrument panel. Moreover, one of its readouts, CL-2 intensity (all CL-2 readouts looked more or less the same), was already starting to rise. He watched it for a few cycles, then smiled. Normal. Even at its present rate, he estimated it would take about fifteen cycles to reach operating parameters.

  He showed the button to Barbousse and Fragonard, then sent them out to help power up the other machines. “By the time you get back,” he called down the ladder after them, “maybe I'll have the next step figured out.”

  As he expected, the remaining controls and readouts were all more or less incomprehensible, except for a big pulse limiter; anybody could recognize one of those. And to its left, a primitive linear slide control was mounted in the panel. It looked a lot like an adjustable thrust sink — common, cost-conscious substitute for antigravity brakes on many large military vehicles built for the League. The slide itself was pushed all the way to the top of its slot, where the highest index numbers were. An “on” position, probably, but he couldn't be sure, so he kept hands off while he studied further.

  He frowned. Most heavy ground equipment operated by ducting energy from a pulse limiter into a gravity-defraction transmitter. The latter acted as a simplified antigravity generator, providing lift and directional thrust through a simple logic-lens arrangement. It couldn't fly, of course, any more than a traveling case could fly. Antigravity technology guaranteed no more than vectored thrust. To actually fly, one needed a lot more major systems than one could economically cram into a ground vehicle.

  Grimacing, Brim pondered the correct amount of energy to gate from the pulse limiter: How much CL-2 was good? Or bad? It was still building steadily, according to the readout in front of him — but to what? He considered the possibility he had just sent Barbousse and Fragonard on a mission to blow up the other seven vehicles in his tenuous command, then shook his head. If that was the way things were going to turn out, then so be it! He had to start somewhere. He returned his concentration to the controls

  Ah! There, low in the left-hand quadrant of the center console, his eye caught a primitive sort of phase converter: Regulating mechanism for just about every pulse limiter he'd ever seen. Of course, the ones in his experience were also installed on heavy mining equipment, and never set at more than half conductance. This one indicated at least a full three-quarters, even a little more. He grimaced. He knew he could fine-tune the device by thumbing a notched wheel under its mounting, but if he set the converter too high, it could severely spike the defraction transmitter when that device came on line, and then he'd never get it started. He could also get a runaway power plant, he remembered with a shudder, and decided to leave everything set as it was for the time being.

  He narrowed his eyes. To the left of the converter, he recognized a strange-looking resonance-choke readout, which indicated a pulse average of zero. Probably all right, as he recalled; these units ran with really low pulse pressure. But if the reading slid into negative values, he knew he would have to consider dumping the CL-2 pressure to start all over again — and he didn't have time for anything like that. Then he noticed the choke was switched to “off.” That explained zero pressure at the readout, but didn't do much to relieve his growing sense of apprehension.

  “Lieutenant,” a voice called out, breaking into his concentration, “we've got 'em all running now.”

  Brim looked up to see Fragonard's face peek over the door coming from the boarding ladder. He checked the other seven machines; each was blazing with unnecessary lights. Happily, nothing untoward seemed to have resulted from punching the big red power buttons. “No problems?” he asked.

  “None, sir,” Fragonard declared.

  “Good,” Brim said offhandedly, “because the next thing you'll have to do is teach those same people how to run them.”

  “How to run 'em, sir?”

  “Not to worry, Fragonard,” Brim chuckled darkly. “It isn't clear I shall ever discover anything to tell you about the subject. “

  “Sir?”

  “Nothing,” Brim said as he got up to stretch. “But you'd better get our friend Barbousse up here with us. We'll all three of us see if we can't learn how this fool thing operates — together. “

  “Aye, sir,” Fragonard said scrambling back down the ladder. He presently returned with Barbousse in tow, and the two were soon breathing over Brim's shoulder, watching every move.

  As he scanned the readouts, Brim brought himself up short, peering at the resonance chokes in utter disbelief. The thrice-xaxtdamned zero reading! He snapped his fingers in angry comprehension. Somewhere in the system, a heavy-duty demodulator kept the whole radiation mechanism safe. And chances were that if the resonance choke was off, so was that demodulator! He felt sweat beading on his forehead. The whole subsystem might already be far beyond the limits of safety. He frantically scanned his readouts searching for… There! He breathed a sigh of relief. He found it, and it was on.

  He glanced nervously at the CL-2 intensity. Universe! Now that was all the way up to fourteen hundred. He ground his teeth, doing a desperate conversion from milli-ROGEN to something he could work with. Then he shook his head and relaxed. Certainly. Fourteen hundred milli-ROGEN was all right in this sort of system (it had no local storage capacity). In fact, the reading was just a hair under normal.

  Getting a firmer grip on himself, he watched the CL-2 climb into the operational range, then switched the choke to “on” and squinted tensely at the readout. It was just beginning to register. Presently, a great plume of vapor sighed from the cooling mechanism behind the cabin and the gravity-defraction transmitter came on line. The big vehicle automatically righted, lifting smoothly to about eight irals above the ground, where it hovered quietly, at last on an even keel.

  “That's the way, Lieutenant!” Barbousse cheered in an awestruck voice.

  Brim could hear more cheering from the ground. He leaned his head against the chair's high back for a moment and took a deep breath. He really had started the xaztdamned thing. “All right, Barbousse, Fragonard,” he said. “You were both watching. Think you can show the others how to do that?”

  “Yes, sir, Lieutenant,” Barbousse declared immediately.

  “I think I could, too,” Fragonard said after frowning once more at the control panel.

  “You only think you could?” Brim asked pointedly.

  “No, sir,” Fragonard declared with a grin. “I could.”

  “That's better,” Brim said, grinning at the two ratings. “Get hopping, then, both of you. You've seven more to fire up while I try to get this oversized ore hauler moving next.” Walking to the hatch, he listened to the deep, steady growl coming through the logic lenses from the gravity-refraction transmitter, then peered down at the small crowd of ratings gathered below. “Stand clear, down there,” he yelled, then made his way back to the front of the cab and took his seat at the controls.

  Buckling himself firmly to the seat, he looked at the pulse limiter and shook his head. Its setting of three-quarters conductance was simply too high. The thumb wheel, however, was mounted in an incredibly awkward place, and he found himself hard pressed to move it. Eventually, he prevailed (with a few skinned knuckles) and changed the reading to fifty percent. Next he gingerly reached out and opened the phase converter itself, gating raw energy into the pulse limiter. The machine sounds behind him changed subtly, becoming deeper and more damped as he listened. He bit his lip nervously, considering everything he had done. So far, it all checked: CL-2 intensity normal (a little on the high side, but not enough to worry about), phase converter at “open” and set to approximately fifty percent, cooling on, gyros lighted, hull trimmed level. He checked the ground
in front of him. It was clear. His previous audience of spectators had mostly disappeared, but here and there he caught a face peering out from behind the protection of a tree or a large rock.

  He laughed. He certainly couldn't blame anybody for that! Shrugging, he acknowledged the vehicle was as ready as he could make it, and retarded the pulse limiter. The sounds in the power compartment increased precipitately, and the big machine began to vibrate. But nothing else happened.

  Brim frowned, opening the pulse limiter still farther. Now a great, discordant roar came from the shuddering traction machinery, but he was moving, albeit in palsied jerks and hops. Trouble was, the movement was nowhere near what it ought to be, considering the tremendous power he was gating to the deflection transmitter. He opened the pulse limiter a little farther still, and his forward progress did improve, but the increased speed was accompanied by intolerable levels of roaring from the traction machinery plus an alarming cycle of repetitive shuddering now coming from beneath his feet. Outside, the few stragglers who persisted in watching the big vehicle move were running panic-stricken for the nearest shelter. Behind him, a huge cloud of steam was blasting from the cooling unit as brightly glowing fins stripped vapor from A'zurn's moist air. The cabin air was blue with the acrid smell of red-hot metal.

  Suddenly, he pounded his fist on the instrument panel. The thrust sink! That's what was doing it. On its highest setting, it was recycling all the energy back to the coolers. No wonder the traction machinery was tearing itself to pieces. He grabbed at the slide, then bit his lip. “Easy, Brim!” he yelled as he moved it gently to the center of its slot.

  The rasping noise faded immediately, although the cooling system continued to race. Brim suspected it would continue to do that for quite awhile to come.

  The big field piece was picking up speed smartly now. Tentatively, he pushed the left rudder pedal. The vehicle lumbered off clumsily in that direction but steered well enough to provide at least a modicum of control. It wasn't built for much manual steering anyway — only enough to maneuver to and from the ubiquitous cableways installed wherever the League held sway. Near anyone of these, automatic devices in the hull of the field piece could take over and “follow the wire,” as the expression went. Typical, he considered, of a civilization that discouraged any sort of free thinking outside a small ruling class. He could see the thick cable he would soon follow himself disappear around the trees at the far end of the field.

  Those trees! For some reason, he was still picking up speed — a lot of it. Already he was running a great deal faster than he should if he were to negotiate a turnaround. He had to stop the big machine. And soon!

  Frantically, he smashed the thrust-sink slide back to the top of its slot; the rasping noise resumed immediately, along with the shuddering, which quickly turned into a bone-jarring series of grinding jolts. Everything loose in the control cabin cascaded to the deck, where it added its own distinctive clatter to the rattling of every plate in the hull.

  And that hadn't stopped it! If anything, he was moving even faster toward the trees, which now looked like a green wall of solid stone. What had gone wrong?

  In something closely related to panic, Brim suddenly realized his latest mistake: The thumb wheel on the phase converter. It was supposed to retard energy flow instead of increase it, so when he'd changed the setting from three-quarters (retardation!) to one-half, he'd actually doubled the device's output. No wonder the thrust sink wouldn't do its job! In horror, he visualized the big machine smashing itself farther and farther into the thick forest ahead until one of the trees was simply too big. He shuddered. In sudden desperation, he awkwardly jammed his fingers onto the little wheel and painfully moved it back close to its original position.

  Immediately, his speed began to drop, along with the shuddering rasp from aft — but far too late to do much about the trees. With a shattering crash, the big machine plowed through the edge of the forest, snapping tree trunks like twigs and throwing splintered logs a hundred irals in the air. The cab ricocheted back and forth like a starship caught in the great-grandfather of all space holes as he stood on the port rudder pedal. Ahead, through the armored glass, he watched a monster tree that seemed to have deliberately moved in his way. This was it! He braced himself for the crash just as the runaway vehicle smashed over a half-buried boulder, swerved crazily, then wobbled level again — miraculously turned around the other way — and stopped at last against a sapling no thicker than his forearm.

  He sat for a number of cycles in the smell of crushed vegetation, listening to more distant artillery, the angry cries of disturbed birds, and the rattling polyphony of cooling metal behind him. Then he returned to the controls and carefully retraced his well-marked route back to the sunlight.

  By the time he reached the forest's edge, his steaming, branch-strewn vehicle was traveling at a normal rate of speed under positive control for the first time since he entered the cab. Brim could feel himself blush as he brought the big vehicle to a stop beside a cheering crowd of ratings. Some days, it simply didn't pay to get out of one's bunk.

  Ten cycles before Brim's scheduled departure, all the mobile field pieces were finally operational, their fledgling crews making the most of a few moments' practice. The field was alive with rumbling, steam-breathing machines that staggered drunkenly over the smashed grass in a scene filled with resounding collisions and general confusion. Red-faced and very much out of breath, Barbousse and Fragonard both returned on foot, grumbling they were hard pressed merely to stay alive amid the roaring mayhem outside.

  Now, with Fragonard safely ensconced in the turret, Barbousse reactivated the COMM, and within a short time a display globe materialized the wobbly image of Colonel Hagbut.

  “Well?” the flush-faced officer demanded. “Are you ready to move out?”

  Brim glanced at the clattering disorder outside, gulped, and nodded his head. “Absolutely, Colonel,” he declared, thankful the Army officer was not privy to the same view of the field. In truth, he rationalized, the Blue Capes were probably as ready as they ever would be.

  “That's better, Brim,” Hagbut barked. “We may make a proper soldier of you yet.”

  Brim uttered a silent oath about that.

  “In precisely eight cycles,” the Colonel continued, “you will lead your field pieces onto the wire at the end of your field and proceed at speed point zero three. That will put you in position to switch onto my cable — behind the personnel carriers — five cycles later. Do you understand?”

  “Aye, Colonel,” Brim said.

  “That's 'Yes, Colonel,'“ Hagbut corrected. “On land, we do not 'aye' anything.” .

  “I understand, Colonel,” Brim said through gritted teeth.

  “That's better, young man.” Abruptly, Hagbut frowned and peered directly in Brim's face. ''Of course,” he exclaimed in sudden recognition. “You're that Carescrian they let into the Fleet, aren't you?”

  “I am a Carescrian, yes,” Brim said stiffly.

  “Universe,” Hagbut said. “That explains a lot. Well, do the best you can, then. I'm sure you can't help what you are.”

  Brim felt his face flush — at the same time he also felt a massive grip on his forearm, well beyond the console's video pickup.

  “Stand easy, Lieutenant,” Barbousse's voice whispered. “Don't let the cod'dlinger make you throw it all away!”

  Brim clenched his fists. “Very good, sir,” he spit through his teeth, but the COMM globe had, as usual, already gone out.

  Five cycles later, all eight machines hovered idling at the end of the wire in reasonable approximation of line-ahead formation, Brim's foliage-littered field piece at the van. Directly behind him, the cab from the next vehicle in line hung over his savaged rear deck, where it had come to rest as the result of a badly planned stop. A red-faced BATTLE COMM rating smiled in discomfiture from the controls as Brim and Barbousse picked themselves up from the deck, strapped more securely into their seats, and prepared to follow the cable
into the leafy tunnel.

  Running at precisely 0.3 speed, according to his velocity readout, Brim's group of lurching vehicles cleared the boundaries of the park (and the end of his temporary cable) precisely at the same time as Hagbut's speeding troop-carrier convoy. So accurate was their arrival that they switched in line behind the last Army coach without even slowing, now following the stronger signal of a permanent cable buried in the road.

  “Not bad for a worthless gaggle of Fleet types,” Brim growled under his voice as the COMM module spawned another display globe.

  “congratulations, Brim,” Hagbut barked. “You do tolerable work.”

  “Thank you, Colonel,” Brim grumped, keeping his voice just the safe side of propriety. At least the zukeed didn't sound as if he wanted to press the Carescrian issue.

  “Our convoy travels no faster than those field pieces of yours, Lieutenant, so keep a careful watch to the rear,” the Colonel admonished. “We have all indications that League forces are nowhere within a day's march — but with operations like this, one trusts one's own eyesight, as they say. Understand?”

  “I understand,” Brim lied, wondering how much the recent artillery exchanges affected the Colonel's “indications.” Turning the controls over to Barbousse, he positioned himself at the COMM module and set up a neat row of seven display globes, one to each of his companion mobile disruptors.

  “Now hear this,” he said into the COMM console. “Our friends from the Expeditionary Forces tell us all League forces have been drawn from the area,” he began. “But just to be on the safe side…” He scanned the seven faces peering at him from the globular displays. Each was serious, but showed no fear whatsoever. “Just to be on the safe side,” he repeated, “you will each keep your eyes peeled for anything suspicious, and report it to me immediately.”

  Seven versions of “Aye, Lieutenant” joined Barbousse in the rumbling control cabin as Brim settled back in the awkward seat for a few moments of relaxation — he had been working at peak output for a considerable time, and was only feeling the first pangs of fatigue. The gentle swaying of the heavy vehicle and the steady thunder of its traction system relaxed him. He leaned back as far as he could in the straight-backed seat and crossed his legs. Forward, the giant shape of Barbousse hunched attentively over a console, poised for instant action should the machine require assistance at the controls.