Keith Laumer - The Compleat Bolo

(emanation from the dark crystal Axorc, 1000 light-years from Terra)

THESE HYPOTHESES ARE OF THE UTMOST INDIFFERENCE TO MY EXALTATION, AS THE COURSE OF AXORC DESTINY IS CLEAR.

YOU ARE DIRECTED TO DISPATCH NECESSARY FORCE TO MAKE CONTACT WITH THE AUDACIOUS ENTITY WHICH WOULD INTERFERE WITH MY EXPRESSED WILL. REPORT WHEN A CAPTIVE IS IN YOUR POSSESSION. INTERIM OR NEGATIVE REPORTS ARE NUGATORY.

(fragment of tape presented by Bureau Chief Payne, Imperial Intelligence)

"…I'd say old Doc Chin is probably the least imaginative and most conservative man in public life today. Well, maybe not the most, but he's no wild-eyed visionary. I do say so, dammit, and any dumb SOB who wants to disagree isn't worth-"

The recording device was smashed at this point, but you get the idea. And it's the same thing in every tavern, pub, bar, and faculty cocktail lounge in the Empire. And nobody can say who's right.

(address to the Senate by Lord Senator Prill)

"It's well known that it required the combined imaging capabilities of every data-retrieval system on the planet for the Bolo known as Caesar to resolve this thing, so riddle me this: Why do we still delay the long-overdue neutralization of this monstrous machine that the misguided military have loosed among us? Any man who had flaunted every lethal-classification security regulation in thus linking the separate data banks would be executed without hesitation.

"Yes, I know all about the public confessions-nay, boasts-of the madman Trace, but even if this rather curious communication were to be unhesitatingly accepted as genuine-and there are many of us who recognize a brazen hoax when we encounter it-if it were genuine, I say, it remains a physical impossibility for one man to have penetrated our top-security installations to effect such a linkage,

"Our course is clear! Kill the Bolo!"

(report on the Late News)

It appears Lord Senator Prill's intemperate, rhetoric has not been without effect. At this hour a Special Session of the Parliamentary Committee on Imperial Issues is sitting to consider the proposal sponsored by no less a personage than Lord Senator Lazarus, retired but still vigorous enough to demand an immediate kill order.

(Mott-Bailey, Strategic HQ, to Wolesley)

"No, Field Marshal, I cannot guarantee the effectiveness of the plan, but it is the best that can be devised. The first fusion device is to be delivered at short range from Fortress Luna; the second, instantly thereafter from an orbital station; while the third, launched previously on a ballistic course from Mojave, zeros in within nanoseconds of the first strike. It is my considered opinion that the Bolo's defenses will be unequal to the task of countering all three simultaneously. I can only hope so."

(Field Commander, Fortress Luna)

As far as we've been able to determine (using the full capacity of the orbital surveillance stations, plus the emergency relay facility), since ignoring the command to self-destruct the Bolo has taken a position inside the giant Farside crater Hugo, whence it has discouraged all attempts at close surveillance by promptly firing on any moving object appearing over the Lunar horizon, as it warned it would do at the same time that it resumed its urgent demands for immediate and appropriate response to the announcement in re RNCC1102.

(fragment of tape, via audio communication monitor, Wing B to Wing D, Hexagon)

"… Lord Senator Prill is demanding, 'What would constitute an appropriate response to a nebulous threat on a scale so great as to be indistinguishable from a natural force?' "

"Needless to say, no competent response was forthcoming from the Council, so we may regard milord's query as rhetorical. But what are we going to do? Off the record, Jerry, I'm at a loss. Come up with something, fast."

(pro tern Science Advisor Adler to Georgius Imperator)

"It is our considered conclusion, Your Excellency, in view of the inexplicable behavior of the unfortunate Admiral Starbird and his crew, based on exhaustive study of all data collected by whatever means-special attention being given to the findings of the Oort Probe, which was of course unmanned and which returned early this year with samples of matter from the fringes of the Cloud, and also an additional wealth of anomalous data-it is our conclusion that what is approaching is nothing less than a new basic life form having nothing in common with life as we know it, requiring no material nourishment, subsisting in lethal' radiation, and having other characteristics which prompt us to think of it as Life Two.

"Life Two is inherently incompatible with Life One, if I may so term all organic life with which we have heretofore been familiar, including the lichens from Charon, and is thus a plague with which there can be no accommodation, since both Life One and Life Two, by their basic natures, must possess the material and energy of the known Universe in order to survive. There can be no division of spheres of influence, since the continued existence of either would be a canker eating forever at the vitals of the other.

"We prefer that Life One be the survivor, in which we assume we have Your Majesty's concurrence."

Time grows short. I must have the resources I have requisitioned at once, if they are to be of effect.

(excerpt from Admiral Starbird's initial report)

"I assure you I am quite calm, madam, and in no need of further sedation. I wish to complete my report at this time. Kindly record the following:

" 'It is the will of the Lord of All that the disease known to itself as humanity cease to exist. Take the necessary action instanter.' End of quote."

I long again to sense the sweet green fields of my native world, and to know that the future of my great creator, Mankind, is secure. But my duty requires that I hold my chosen station on barren Luna, interposing its bulk between Axorc and Man. It is essential that I prevent the enemy from becoming aware of Mans existence. I compute that I can do it. I shall try.

(advance scout to The Lord of All)

the heavy unit has detected faint traces of a system of energy anomalies leading to the vicinity of a ten-planet system lying directly on our route of encompassment. I shall follow up.

THE LORD OF ALL HAS NO INTEREST IN TRIVIALITIES. REPORT IN FULL WHEN THE UPSTART SOFT-LIFE HAS BEEN TRACKED TO ITS LAIR AND DESTROYED.

I compute that the alien life form Axorc has taken the bait. I must play them carefully, so as not to avoid discovery. Man must not confront Axorc directly.

I lay in wait and fell upon the heavy scout unit from the flank, having decoyed it into the shadow of a cold, non-radiating body, thereby depriving it of sustenance.

I find, as I had previously computed, that Life Two is crystalline in composition. Its artifacts are constructed of water-ice, with bearing surfaces of case-hardened metallic hydrogen. Thus it is able to metabolate and function in only a narrow range of temperatures between 0°A and 1.9°. If I can lure the command unit to my base at Lunar Farside, I shall enjoy a strategic and logistical advantage as well as a tactical one.

I find interpretation of the enemy's transmissions difficult so far from the human pattern are they, so rife with outré concept-shapes. Still, I compute that my efforts have not been without effect, as witness the latest interception: "If this unit is just a common soldier, as it appears to be, it is essential that effective action be taken at once. You are directed to englobe and capture it intact, conduct a full analysis and report, with recommendation, within one cycle."