Мюррей Лейнстер - The Wailing Asteroid

Burke said, "In a way, a telephone system transposes sound–waves from one place to another. Sound–waves aren't carried along wires. They're here, and then suddenly they're there. But there has to be a sending and receiving station at each end. When the fortress here was 'cut off' from home it could be that its supply–system broke down."

"Its air–system didn't," said Holmes. "It hadn't used up its emergency air–supply. We're breathing it!"

"Anyhow we could try to find even a broken–down transposer," said Sandy.

"You try," said Burke. "Keller's been looking for something for me in the cubes. I'll stay here and help him look."

Sandy examined the weapon he'd given her.

"Pam says she's smelled fresh air, down below where there can't be any. Mr. Keller thought he saw movements in the inside vision–plates, where there can't be any. I still believe I saw something alive in the gravity–machine room, where such a thing is impossible. We're going to look, Pam and I."

Holmes lumbered to his feet.

"I'll come, too. And I'll guarantee to defend you against anything that has survived the ten thousand years or so that this place was without air. My head's tired, after all those cubes."

He led the way. Burke watched as the two girls followed him and closed the door behind them.

"What have you found, Keller?"

"A cube about globes," said Keller. "Very interesting."

"Nothing on communication with base?"

Keller shook his head.

Burke said evenly, "I figured out three chances for us—all slim ones. The first was to find the garrison when the radio summons didn't and get it or its descendants to help. I found the garrison—on Earth. No help there. The second chance was finding the civilization that had built this fortress. It looks like it's collapsed. There's been time for a new civilization to get started, but it's run away. The third chance is the slimmest of all. It's hooking together something to fight with."

Keller reached out over the array of cubes that had been experienced by Holmes and himself while using the helmets from the cube–library. One cube had been set aside. Keller put it in place on the extra helmet and handed it to Burke.

"Try it," said Keller.

Burke put the helmet on his head.

He was in this same instrument–room, but he wore a uniform and he sat at an instrument–board. He knew that there were drone service–boats perhaps ten thousand miles out, perhaps a hundred. They'd been fitted out to make a mock attack on the fortress. Counter–tactics men devised them. There was reason for worry. Three times, now, drones pretending to be Enemy ships had dodged past the screen of globes set out to prevent just such an evasion. Once, one of the drones had gloatingly touched the stone of the fortress' outer surface. This was triumph for the counter–tactics crew, but it was proof that an Enemy ship could have wiped out the fortress and all its garrison a hundred times over.

Burke sweated. There was a speck with a yellow ring about it. It was a globe, poised and ready to dart in any conceivable direction if an Enemy detection–device ranged it. The globes did not go seeking an Enemy. They placed themselves where they would be sought. They set themselves up as targets. But when a radar–pulse touched them, they flung themselves at its source, their reflex chooser–circuits pouring incredible power into a beam of the same characteristics as the radar–touch. That beam, of course, paralyzed or burned out the Enemy device necessarily tuned to it. And the globes plunged at the thing which had found them. They accelerated at a hundred and sixty gravities and mere high explosive would be wasted if they carried it. Nothing could stand their impact. Nothing!

But in drills three drones had dodged them. The counter–tactics men understood the drones, of course, as it was hoped the Enemy did not. But it should not be possible to get to the fortress! If the fortress was vulnerable, so was the Empire. If the Empire was vulnerable, the Enemy would wreck its worlds, blast its cities, exterminate its population and only foulness would remain in the Galaxy.

On the monitor–board a light flashed. A line of green light darted across the screen. It was the path of a globe hurtling toward something that had touched it with a radar–frequency signal. The acceleration of the globe was breathtaking. It seemed to explode toward its target.

But this globe hit nothing. It went on and on…. A second globe sprang. It also struck nothing. It went away to illimitable emptiness. Its path exactly crossed that of the first. A third and fourth and fifth…. Each one flung itself ferociously at the source of some trickle of radiation. Their trails crossed at exactly the same spot. But there was nothing there….

Burke suddenly flung up a row of switches, inactivating the remaining globes under his control. Five had flung themselves away, darting at something which radiated but did not exist. Something which was not solid. Which was not a drone ship impersonating an Enemy. They'd attacked an illusion….

At the control–board. Burke clenched his fist and struck angrily at the flat surface before him. An illusion! Of course!

Cunningly, he made adjustments. He had five globes left. He chose one and changed the setting of its reflex chooser–circuit. It would ignore radar frequencies now. It would pick up only stray radiation—induction frequencies from a drone ship with its drive on.

The globe's light flashed. A train of green fire appeared. A burst of flame. A hit! The drone was destroyed. He swiftly changed the setting of the reflex circuits of the rest. Two! Three! Three drones blasted in twice as many seconds.

He mopped his forehead. This was only a drill, but when the Enemy came it would be the solution of such problems that would determine the survival of the fortress and the destruction of the Enemy.

He reported his success crisply.

Burke took off the helmet.

Keller said mildly, "What did he do?"

Burke considered.

"The drone, faking to be an enemy, had dumped something out into space. Metal powder, perhaps. It made a cloud in emptiness. Then the drone drew off and threw a radar–beam on the cloud of metal particles. The beam bounced in all directions. When a globe picked it up, it shot for the phony metal–powder target. It went right through and off into space. Other globes fell for the same trick. When they were all gone, the drones could have come right up to the fort."

He was almost interested. He'd felt, at least, the sweating earnestness of an unknown member of this garrison, dead some thousands of years, as he tried to make a good showing in a battle drill.

"So he changed the reflex circuits," Burke added. "He stopped his globes from homing on radar frequencies. He made them home on frequencies that wouldn't bounce." Then he said in surprise, "But they didn't hit, at that! The drones blew up before the globes got to them! They were exploding from the burning–out of all their equipment before the globes got there!"

Keller nodded. He said sorrowfully, "So clever, our ancestors. But not clever enough!"

"Of our chances," said Burke, "or what I think are chances, the least promising seems to be the idea of trying to hook something together to fight with." He considered, and then smiled very faintly. "You saw movements you couldn't identify in the vision–plates? Sandy says she saw something alive. I wonder if something besides us answered the space–call and got into the fortress by a different way, and has been hiding out, afraid of us."

Keller shook his head.

"I don't believe it either," admitted Burke. "It seems crazy. But it might be true. It might. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel for solutions to our problem."