Poul Anderson - The People of the Wind

But he was too busy to dwell on their goodbyes. More and more reports were arriving at his flagship. A pattern was beginning to emerge.

“Observe,” he said. The computers had just corrected the display tank according, to the latest data. It indicated sun, planets, and color-coded sparks which stood for ships. “Combats here, here, here. Elsewhere, neutrino emissions reaching our detectors, cross-correlations getting made, fixes being obtained.”

“Foully thin information,” said the feathers and attitude of his aide.

“Thus far, aye, across interplanetary distances. However, we can fill in certain gaps with reason, if we assume their admiral is competent. I feel moderately sure that his pincer has but two claws, coming in almost diametrically opposite, from well north and south of the ecliptic plane… so.” Ferune pointed. “Now he must have reserves further out. To avoid making a wide circuit with consequent risk of premature detection, these must have run fairly straight from the general direction of Pax. And were I in charge, I would have them near the ecliptic. Hence we look for their assault, as the pincers close, from here.” He indicated the region.

They stood alone in the command bridge, broad though the chamber was. Ythrians wanted room to stretch their wings. Yet they were wholly linked to the ship by her intercoms, calculators, officers, crewfolk, more tenuously linked to that magnificence which darkened and bejeweled a viewscreen, where the killing had begun. Clangor and clatter of activity came faint to them, through a deep susurrus of power. The air blew warm, ruffling their plumes a little, scented with perfume of cinnamon bush and amberdragon. Blood odors would not be ordered unless and until the vessel got into actual combat; the crew would soon be worn out if stimulated too intensely.

Ferune’s plan did not call for hazarding the super-dreadnaught this early. Her power belonged in his end game. At that time he intended to show the Terrans why she was called after the site of an ancient battle on Ythri. He had had the Anglic translation of the name painted broad on the sides: Hell Rock.

A new cluster of motes appeared in the tank. Their brightnesses indicated ship types, as accurately as analysis of their neutrino emanations could suggest. The aide started. His crest bristled. “That many more hostiles, so soon? Uncle, the odds look bad.”

“We knew they would. Don’t let this toy hypnotize you. I’ve been through worse. Half of me is regenerated tissue after combat wounds. And I’m still skyborne.”

“Forgive me, Uncle, but most of your fights were police actions inside the Domain. This is the Empire coming.”

Ferune expressed: “I am not unaware of that. And I too have studied advanced militechnics, both practical and theoretical.” Aloud he said, “Computers, robots, machines are only half the makers of a war-weird. There are also brains and hearts.”

Claws clacked on the deck as he walked to the view-screen and peered forth. His experienced eye picked out a glint among the stars, one ship. Otherwise his fleet was lost to vision in the immensity through which it fanned.

“A new engagement commencing,” said the intercom.

Ferune waited motionless for details. Through his mind passed words from one of the old Terran books it pleasured him to read. The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul.

Hours built into days while the fleets, in their hugely scattered divisions, felt for and sought each other’s throats.

Consider: at a linear acceleration of one Terran gravity, a vessel can, from a “standing start,” cover one astronomical unit — about 149 million kilometers — in a bit under fifty hours. At the end of that period, she has gained 1060 kilometers pet second of velocity. In twice the time, she will move at twice the speed and will have spanned four times the distance. No matter what power is conferred by thermonuclear engines, no matter what maneuverability comes from a gravity thrust which reacts directly against that fabric of relationships we call space, one does not quickly alter quantities on this order of magnitude.

Then, too, there is the sheer vastness of even interplanetary reaches. A sphere one a.u. in radius has the volume of some thirteen million million Terras; to multiply this radius by ten is to multiply the volume by a thousand. No matter how sensitive the instruments, one does not quickly scan those deeps, nor ever do it with much accuracy beyond one’s immediate neighborhood, nor know where a detached object is now if signals are limited to light speed. As the maddeningly incomplete, hoard of data grows, not just the parameters of battle calculations change; the equations do. One discovers he has lost hours in travel which has turned out to be useless or worse, and must lose hours or days more in trying to remedy matters. But then, explosively fast, will come a near enough approach at nearly enough matched velocities for a combat which may well be finished in seconds.

“Number Seven, launch!” warned the dispatcher robot, and flung Hooting Star out to battle.

Her engines took hold: A thrum went through the bones of Philippe Rochefort where he sat harnessed in the pilot chair. Above his instrument panel, over his helmet and past either shoulder, viewscreens fitted a quarter globe with suns. Laura, radiance stopped down lest it blind him, shone among them as a minikin disk between two nacreous wings of zodiacal light.

His radar alarm whistled and lit up, swiveling an arrow inside a clear ball. His heart sprang. He couldn’t help glancing that way. And he caught a glimpse of the cylinder which hurtled toward Ansa’s great flank.

During a launch, the negagrav screen in that area of the mother vessel is necessarily turned off. Nothing is there to repulse a torpedo. If the thing makes contact and detonates — In vacuum, several kilotons are not quite so appallingly destructive as in air or water; and a capital ship is armored and compartmented against concussion and heat, thickly shielded to cut down what hard radiation gets inside. Nevertheless she will be badly hurt, perhaps crippled, and men will be blown apart, cooked alive, shrieking their wish to die…

An energy beam flashed. An instant’s incandescence followed. Sensors gave their findings to the appropriate computer. Within a millisecond of the burst, a “Cleared” note warbled. One of Wa Chaou’s guns had caught the torpedo square on.

“Well done!” Rochefort cried over the intercom. “Good show, Watch Out!” He rotated his detectors in search of the boat which must have been sufficiently close to loose that missile. Registry. Lockon. Hooting Star surged forward. Ansa dwindled among the constellations. “Give me an estimated time to come in range, Abdullah,” Rochefort said.

“He seems aware of us,” Helu’s voice answered, stone-calm. “Depends on whether he’ll try to get away or close in… Um-m, yes, he’s skiting for cover.” ( I would too, for fair, Rochefort thought, when a heavy cruiser’s spitting boats. That’s a brave skipper who sneaked this near.) “ We can intercept in about ten minutes, assuming he’s at his top acceleration. But I don’t think anybody else will be able to help us, and if we wait for them, hell escape.”

“We’re not waiting,” Rochefort decided. He lasered his intentions back to the squadron control office aboard ship and got an okay. Meanwhile he wished his sweat were not breaking out wet and sour. He wasn’t afraid, though; his pulse beat high but steady and never before had he seen the stars with such clarity and exactness. It was good to know he had the inborn courage for Academy psych-training to develop.