Alan Foster: Dark Star

It was born out of a computer relay from the Dark Star ’s brain and would die soon in funereal conflagration unknown in this part of the galaxy till now. The rectangular box-shape with the number 19 painted on its sides was, as Pinback insisted, a thermostellar device—or, as Boiler and Doolittle persisted, a bomb.

The sergeant reached up and flipped an overhead switch. The words LOCK FAIL-SAFE appeared on the screen in front of him.

“Fail-safe engaged.” He tapped the end of his microphone and blew into it once. “Sergeant Pinback calling bomb.”

Doolittle gave him a look, but Pinback ignored it. He couldn’t see any harm in being convivial, even with a bomb.

“Bomb number nineteen, do you read me, bomb?” The voice that replied was muted, relaxed, and not at all concerned about its impending suicide. “Bomb number nineteen to Sergeant Pinback. I read you, Sergeant. What’s up?”

“Well, bomb,” Pinback continued conversationally, examining his nails, “not much.” There, that was pleasant enough. He tried to be this way with each bomb before it was dropped. After all, they didn’t live very long. And no matter what Doolittle and Boiler thought, he felt bombs were pretty nice people—for planet-destroying machines, that is.

To be perfectly honest about it, he’d rather talk to one of the bombs than to Boiler any day.

“Well, bomb, it’s just about sixty seconds to drop. Just wondering if everything is all right.” He adjusted another set of controls. “How are you feeling?”

“As well as can be expected. I’m looking forward to carrying out the mission for which I was designed.”

“Atta boy, bomb. Checked your platinum-iridium energy grid? And your shielding?”

“Grid and shielding positive function,” the bomb replied good-naturedly.

“Swell,” said Pinback. “Tell you what, bomb. Let’s go ahead a sychronize detonation time. Ah, you wouldn’t happen to know when you’re due to go off, would you?”

“Detonation in six minutes, twenty seconds.”

“Good, good. Just let me double-check that.”

“Very well, Sergeant Pinback.”

“All set here, bomb. We match up. Arm yourself.”

A few small red lights flashed briefly from the back of the thermostellar device. That was all there was to indicate that the inert construct of metal and plastic was now the most dangerous single object within a hundred parsecs.

“Armed,” it said sharply.

“Well then…” Pinback sighed, looked around for something else to do. “Everything looks good, bomb. Dropping you off in about thirty-five seconds. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” said the bomb. Its diagramatic targeting computer had already locked on to the world below.

The interior of the control room now became a flurry of controlled activity as final preparations were made. Then Boiler and Doolittle sat back as Pinback gripped a pair of opposing knobs and stared at the small chronometer set into the panel above his station.

“Beginning primary sequence.”

Doolittle flipped a last switch, watched a red light wink on in front of him.

“Sequence activated. Commence countdown.”

“Roger. Mark it: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.” Both switches were turned simultaneously. “Drop.”

There was a bright flare of light from the point where the bomb contacted its release disk. The thremostellar trigger dropped away from the ship. The disk and tube were drawn rapidly up into its belly.

“Hyperdrive sequence begun,” Doolittle noted. “Hit it, Pinback.”

The sergeant hit a pair of buttons in rapid succession. “Force field activated… sequence engaged.” He sat back in his chair. A slight tingle started to come over his whole body, as if his leg and everything else were suddenly going to sleep. Then the field locked in, and he saw everything through a haze of red cellophane. This field would enable them to survive the short run at hyperdrive.

There was a second’s pause, and then the Dark Star vanished from the region of the unstable world, thrown away at incredible speed to a precalculated point in free space—a point far removed from the debris of a shattered planet to come.

Behind them, the bomb, quiet and alone now, continued down toward the planet’s surface.

Though the force field fogged his vision, Talby could still see the stars. Only now they were rushing to greet him—all sizes and all degrees of magnitude, rushing toward him. But the distorting blur of hyperdrive allowed him to greet only a few in return. They fell at him like horizontal rain, pelting him with color as they rushed past and disappeared.

Supposedly it wasn’t safe for a man to stay up in the observation dome while the ship was in hyperdrive. The shielding provided by the transparent hemisphere was minimal, and it was theorized that in hyperdrive a person might be subjected to a dangerously concentrated burst of radiation.

Talby, however, had disproved this particular theory, as he had disproved so many others. He’d survived eighteen such fights now, and his body was a healthy as ever. Healthier than that of anyone else on board, which, considering that he spent no time in the exercise room, Doolittle was at a loss to explain.

Talbly told him it was due to peace of mind, but Doolittle insisted there had to be something more than that. Perhaps the hypothesizers were right, but wrong. Perhaps anyone who remained in the dome during hyperdrive did receive a concentrated dose of radiation. Radiation that was not dangerous, but benign. Radiation that supplied something special to a man. Because there was no denying that Talby defied a large number of accepted rules for interstellar travel and came out of it in peculiarly good shape.

No one saw the bomb reach its predetermined detonation point just above the planet’s surface. They were already too far away for that. But behind them, a blinding ball of white light appeared where the unstable world had once drifted. It turned pink, then crimson—a monstrous, blood-colored blossom blooming in uncaring night.

Then it faded rapidly and was gone. A world had vanished from the galaxy. Its convulsive death had given life to several new clusters of asteroids and meteors. These would now take their place among the other cosmic debris roaming the starpaths.

The universe came to an abrupt halt. The Dark Star stopped, its hyperdrive sequence concluded.

The red haze of the field faded from his eyes, drawn back into its electronic cage. Talby blinked.

He made a quick check of his instruments. They were safely out of hyperdrive. All navigational equipment was functioning properly, and they were on course. His hand moved toward the intercom switch. He intended to relay this information to Doolittle but, as so often happened, something more important caught his eye, dragged him away from human concerns.

Just to the lower right of their present course lay a particularly handsome purple and red nebula. They would pass quite close to it if they continued on their present path. He should have ample time to enjoy and study the new miracle.

His hand continued to hover halfway between the intercom activator and the arm of his chair-lounge. Then he relaxed in the seat. As astronomer it was still his job to make manual verification of the bomb run. But suppose he didn’t? Suppose he didn’t, and the bomb had malfunctioned? The scenario was simple to imagine. The world in the system they had just left would be explored and settled. Eventually it might grow to support a population larger than Earth’s.

Then, one distant day, a planet thought safe would go spinning off its orbit into the sun, perhaps turning it in a few days into a churning nova which would sear the settled world clean of billions of lives. And no one could do more than rant and curse at the long-dead Talby He would have returned a blow for the natural, unmanipulated universe. But he couldn’t do it.