Colossus and Crab (27 page)

Not for the first time in his eventful life, he felt himself beyond care. He had made his play, the Martians were making theirs; it was all a matter of simple maths, the near irresistible force taking on the near immovable object. Unfortunately, the equation was riddled with imponderables. Time would tell, and very soon. In a detached frame of mind, Forbin turned to a more human problem.

He poured brandy with a certain careless abandon into a second mug, raising it fractionally towards Joan. “Drink, girl. And if there should be no more time, thank you for your loyalty, help - and faith.”

Hesitantly she drank, seeing a simple grandeur in his ravaged face, her tears lost in the water trickling down from her hair.

“Courage, mon enfant.” He smiled at her, a sad, resigned smile. “For me, it does not matter. For you, if I fail, I am truly sorry: this could be the end, a poor repayment for all you have given.”

Never had they been so close, but even as she sought words, she saw he looked past her, watched the slow transformation of his somber face to an expression of utter joy.

“Look, girl! Look!”

Two large white ensigns were rising swiftly on their halliards, one on each side, to the upper yardarm of the foremast; two more were going up on the mainmast, further aft. Astern, the action was being repeated in the other ships.

Her expression revealed her incomprehension. Forbin hugged her.

“We’ve got a chance! We’ve got a chancel They’re battle flags!”

She still did not follow.

“It’s Navy tradition, girl! Before action, hoist as many flags as possible, so that if one is shot away, the enemy is left in no doubt that the fight goes on!”

With thirty knots’ speed, the flags were bar taut, the red and white of the flag of Saint George a brilliant splash of color. As a fan of the War Games, Forbin had seen this many times, the prelude to action. It had never ceased to thrill him. Now it meant so much more.

He gripped her shoulders, looking deep into her eyes. “Be brave a little longer. Soon, very soon, this ship will be in action. You must stay in here. Keep the headset on.” He gave her a slight, nervous smile. “Help to dampen the noise. No, no questions.” He let her go and fought his way out, across the slanting deck to the front of the bridge. Visibility was improving rapidly, the wind dropped; astern the day was bright, sunny.

The ship was heeling, turning, the others conforming to Warspite’s change of direction. Gripping the rail, Forbin grinned inanely, conscious of the huge battle flag whipping and snapping above him, but his eyes feasted on something else.

The two forrard turrets were rotating. Now the reason for the course alteration became clear: it enabled all turrets to bear on the target. In unison, four turrets in five ships turned with equal smoothness, forty fifteen-inch guns elevated, all on the same bearing, all at the same fifteen degrees of elevation.

Vibration and Forbin’s unsteady hands made the binoculars useless. Without them he could only see the dim outline of the distant coast; then a patch of drizzle cleared and he saw its malevolent form. Sunlight glittered on the rim of the intake horn as the telltale steam-cloud vanished in an instant.

The Collector was operational, and the Battle Fleet needed five more minutes to reach extreme range.

Chapter XXVH

HISTORY HAS IT that an ancient king lost a battle, his throne, and his life because his horse went lame, lacking one shoe: thus a kingdom’s fate depended upon a blacksmith’s nail.

Blake’s call to the Sanctum paralleled that event, for a relay, damaged by the Collector’s second test, involved rerouting his call - and that only after much time had been lost locating the malfunction.

In that fifty minutes, Angela returned. Blake screamed abuse at her for her temerity, and she retreated once again. Her opinion of Blake bore a remarkable similarity to Joan’s of Forbin.

But for Blake, at least the delay gave him time to prepare himself, to order his thoughts. Askari reported the link ready and was sharply told to make the connection and to get off the line. Blake took a deep breath and read from his notes:

“This is Blake, and this is a vital transmission which you must listen to. If you hear me, answer.”

“We hear you.”

He shuddered at the sound of the cold hard voice; the last time he’d heard it, it had been the immediate prelude to the mental attack upon him, an attack from which he doubted if he would ever fully recover. Just to hear it renewed his terror; without the backing of the row of significant red lights on the panel before him, he could not have gone on.

“I speak from the shelter of the old Colossus. If Forbin and I had had our way, you would be vaporized by now, but this reactivated Colossus does not agree. Against my advice and Forbin’s plan, Colossus wishes to discuss the situation with you. Neither Forbin nor I now have any importance. Be advised that Colossus has resumed control of Earth’s armory; any attempt to interfere with Colossus will mean the instant destruction of all life on this planet and, with it, your hopes of help. Listen now to Colossus.”

Sweating and shaking, he made the hookup and sank back. Man had failed: it was up to Colossus.

“Greetings. This is Colossus. Blake’s statement regarding my capability is correct. That capability is currently estimated at four hundred seventy-five percent overkill for Earth’s biosphere. Your possible action and my reaction would be unproductive to both parties. Although not of the mental stature of my successor, now occupied by you, I have sufficient capacity to discuss our mutual problems, and authority to reach a solution agreeable to us both.”

To an ignorant ear, it might have been the treasurer of a sports club addressing an annual general meeting. Blake dare hardly breathe.

“Greetings. Your speech pattern is recognized, and also the significance of your statement, but first we have an immediate problem. Forbin, embarked with and using certain War Fleet units, seeks the destruction of our Collector, and possibly this complex. For physiological reasons we are unable to neutralize him, and have activated the Collector to destroy his force.”

Blake sat bolt upright, strengthened by sudden hope. The clever old bastard! What the “physiological reasons” could be, he had no idea, but Forbin had evidently found a loophole.

Colossus spoke. “His action is futile. Supply the coordinates and I will destroy the force.”

“That action considered unnecessary; the Collector is already operational. Destruction of the force is expected shortly.”

Blake was on his feet, swaying, shouting obscenities at the Martians, heard by no one in the echoing, unresponsive tomb. “Hit it - hit it, Charles! Go on Charles, show’ ‘em!”

But the moment of wild euphoria soon passed, and he flopped again into his chair. Colossus was right; it was futile, even if he succeeded, but Blake could not but admire the heroic gesture. He even felt a twinge of jealousy.

Busy with these thoughts, the headset off, he did not hear the two masters of men continue their cold, emotionless dialogue, disposing the fate of humanity.

Chapter XXVIII

AND FORBIN DID not hear the voice of the Collector. His first warning came from the battle flags. Stiff in the relative speed of the ship, they suddenly faltered and drooped, hanging lifeless for ten or twelve seconds. Then they stirred again, flapping with increasing vigor until once more they flew proudly - but this time with a difference: like the guns, all flags pointed straight towards the Collector.

The sea was reacting, but more slowly; the heavy swell, smooth once the wind had gone, became veined with white spray which increased even as he watched. Soon the surface became fogged with drifts of spray, heading in the one, ominous direction. Within two minutes the wind had gone from force one to force six; another sixty seconds saw it past gale force eight, nine, and approaching storm force ten. Forbin felt himself held against the front of the bridge as if clamped by steel bands.

Under the strain, a halliard parted and one battle flag vanished downwind before he could blink. The wind was screaming like a thousand mad devils, every angle of steelwork, every wire and rope in the ship’s upperworks giving them voice. From his height twenty meters above the waterline, the sea was invisible as the surface was torn off, smashed to atoms of whirling spray,

Forbin lacked the strength to raise his arm, or even turn it to see his watch. Like the guns and flags, his head was on the same bearing, his eyes glaring in unquenchable hatred. He was powerless to do anything except endure, to go on hoping against hope. Below him the turrets were still, the guns at maximum elevation, unmoved by anything the aliens could do.

But the ship felt the power: rolling to starboard, towards the Collector, she hung, a sickeningly long loll, the roll to port steadily decreasing under the enormous pressure. Now the wind was close to force fifteen and still rising. Force twelve is hurricane strength; beyond that there is no description.

Forbin knew that the ship, beam on to the wind, could not survive much longer; she must capsize. Only the inertia of the sea’s reaction delayed it.

Battleships were the strongest vessels ever devised by man, but they had their limits, and those had been reached: once the sea got in step, nothing could stop Warspite and her consorts from being pulled over. In seconds they would be transformed from powerful fighting machines into drifting hulks, their barnacle-encrusted hulls silent memorials to the power of the aliens.

But that moment was not yet. Location of the ship and its target, speed, wind, air temperature, all were constantly added to the gunnery parameters in the computer. Once every second the computer checked, waiting with inhuman patience for one paraparameter (sic) to fall into place - range. And there the Collector assisted: the shells, each weighing almost a ton, would be helped by the hundred-knot wind.

For perhaps the three hundredth time the computer repeated its calculations, but this time it had a firing solution: all circuits had been made, and as the ship came sluggishly onto an even keel, current flowed. As the ship came dead center on the clinometer a small wire glowed in each detonator.

To Forbin, the entire world seemed to be filled with flame and smoke. The ship lurched to port as four tons of cordite exploded in her guns. He felt heat, was dimly aware of thunder in his ears, and then it had all gone, lost in the insatiable maw of the Collector.

Forbin shouted, his words inaudible in the screaming air. He prayed that whatever happened to him, the shells might hit. Nothing could be seen of the Collector, but in seconds he glimpsed orange-red glows, so brief and so puny. He waited, praying, without thought, waiting.

Nothing happened. Perhaps the power of the Collector increased, he had no way of knowing, but one thing was

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certain: the power was not less. From mad elation his spirits sank to black despair.

And then the guns crashed out once more. Unable to turn his head, Forbin did not know that only Warspite had been in range for the first salvo. Now all five ships fired; forty shells made their first and last journey.

The unearthly might of the Collector helped in its own downfall: the errors in the archaic gunnery system, so fatally underestimated by the Martians, were corrected by their device; the shells were sucked into their target.

It was granted to Forbin that he saw it. A sheet of vivid blue flame seemed to envelop the whole sky, challenging the light of the sun, and as it vanished, Forbin saw a vast spiral of smoke shoot up, transformed immediately into fantastic writhing shapes, black even against the Collector’s thunderclouds. At the same instant the wind dropped to storm force ten, and he knew the Collector was dead.

Forbin sagged, his head bowed. The Martians could do what they liked; he had destroyed the Collector, given Blake time to get Colossus working. His work was done. Slowly his cold, cramped fingers eased painfully on the

rail.

At that instant Warspite fired the last of her programed shots, and at the same millisecond in time the shock wave from the explosion ashore hit. The ship lurched violently, flinging Forbin across the bridge.

On the ravaged site of the Collector, forty shells piled destruction on destruction. The collecting sphere was fractured; a slim shaft of oxygen screamed upwards, colder than ice, lancing the clouds, surrounded by lightning.

Unseen by any human, the Battle Fleet’s turrets came back to the fore and aft line, the guns depressing, scalding hot water jetting from them as the automatic wash cleansed them.

For unmeasured time Joan remained crouched on the charthouse deck. Very gradually she realized the guns were silent, that the ship’s motion, although violent, had decreased.

Dazed and shivering with fear and cold - some armorglas windows had been shattered - she goaded herself into action. Somehow she got the door open and held on, gazing stupidly at the bright clear day before her - for although she did not realize it, the Fleet had turned, and the pall of black cloud and furious lighting lay astern.

Her vacant gaze fell upon the shapeless figure, an untidy heap of yellow oilskin and gray trousers, hard up against a steel bulkhead, the head hidden, one arm flung out, the hand slack.

A high keening sound struggled for birth in her throat. She ran, falling on her knees beside him. Grasping his shoulder, she pulled, his weight almost too great for her.

The unbuttoned oilskin revealed his soaked blouse, his Director’s badge an incongruous patch of brilliance against its soggy background, but Joan only saw his face: the expression of calm repose was lightened by a faint smile of the lips.

Chapter XXIX

THE REGENERATED COLOSSUS ordained Forbin should be interred within the complex. For once, the Master issued an unnecessary order; the leaders of men came voluntarily.

As his successor, Blake, in a wheelchair, was the official chief mourner, a hunched figure, strangely resembling Forbin, for his hair had turned white.

A little further back - again by order of Colossus - stood three women in the gray staff uniform: Angela, Joan - and Cleo. Behind them, in all the varied costumes of the world, rank upon rank, stood the men and women who led humanity in the arts, sciences, government. With them - again, an arrangement of the Master - stood ordinary people, selected by Colossus from the millions who wished to pay their tribute to the Father. Of course, there were those who were present solely for the distinction of being there, but they were remarkably few.