Zach Hughes - Closed System

"Three hours, then," he said.

"I'll miss you," she said, starting to close thedoor.

"By the way, I think I've got the general idea ofall of it now, except for one thing. Why do youhave to depend on the Dorchlunters to fire theweapons?"

She cast an impatient glance at her timepiece,then looked into his eyes. "That's the only flaw leftin the weapon," she said. "It can be quite dangerous, turning on itself and the ship which carries it, if an attempt is made to release the energy prema­turely or if one waits too long. Given time, wecould computerize the controls, but we don't have time. The Zedeians were getting extremely both­ersome and suspicious. My brother knew that wecould not risk waiting any longer. But there's no need to be concerned. These people have lived fora thousand years under rigid discipline. The youngmen are taught from childhood to feel the momentof proper charge. It's not magic, it's simply a mat­ter of day-after-day, year-after-year training to develop the awareness of the field which forms arounda disrupter. There has never been an accident witha charged weapon."

"That's good to know," he said, and then shewas gone.

It felt good to be back aboard Skimmer. He drewcoffee, seated himself at the computer console."How

have you been, old man?" he asked.

"Please repeat the instruction," the computersaid.

The old man was having trouble with his hear­ing again.

"Now don't sulk just because I've left you alone,"Pat said. "I want material regarding the molecular bonding energy of copper."

"Please repeat the instruction," the computersaid. Pat typed it in instead of repeating it orally.The computer gave the equivalent of a sigh, along, purring sound, and began to search its entirememory bank. Pat stopped it, gave more specificinstructions. After ten minutes he realized that theold man was in a bad way, that the ionization inhis memory chambers was worse. He checked afew individual references under atomic theory, molecular energy, just about every heading he couldthink of, and drew only blanks.

He remembered, then, that he had the Artuneemanuscript in both original and translated formin the library. He soon had it on the screen, and ittook only a few minutes to locate the referencesand cross-references to the material included inthe story of a dead alien race. He found what hewanted in a thesis written by one Alaxender ofTrojan.

"It is a fundamental law that an electron at rest,in copper, exerts a force on every other electron atrest, repelling its fellows in inverse proportion to thesquare of the distance between them. This force is measurable, being 8.038 X 10-26pounds."

The force, minute in regard to a single electron,is balanced by a counterforce, respresented by aproton. If the repulsion of the protons were notexactly balanced by that of the electrons, energywould be released. Alaxender of Trojan had calcu­lated the force represented by the binding energiesin two tenth-of-an-inch cubes of copper placed oneinch from each other at over six hundred billiontons. If, somehow, the balance could be destroyed,releasing that energy in a controlled stream, as itwas apparently released by the disrupter—

Not much work had been done in the field sincethe flurry of interest following the translation ofthe Artunee manuscript. The blink drive, the ulti­mate power source, fulfilled all needs. Man did notneed the power of Bertt, the Artunee. Nor did heneed another weapon of destruction, so interesthad lagged.

It was odd, and it was shaping up to be tragic,that some forgotten Zedeian scientist, possibly onenamed Sargoff, a name mentioned by young Gorben, had discovered Bertt's force quite indepen­dently, and centuries before the Cygnus expedition.

The disrupter worked. And he'd seen the speedand accuracy with which the young men of Dorch­lunt manned the weapons. A UP fleet, massed forfirepower, could be swept with half a dozen of the disrupters within seconds and each ship wouldthen be dead in space, with all the men inside asdead as the ship's systems.

There was no questioning the real danger to allof UP civilization. By chance, a young scholar had rediscovered a thousand-year-old Zedeian secret.By chance, he'd found the colonization ship andthe descendants of the original scientists. And bychance, a small man with a big body, an engaging laugh, and savage, unrelenting purpose was in a position to become ruler of the entire populatedgalaxy.

"Hey, Pat," a boisterous voice said from Skim­ mer'scommunicator. "You there, boy?" "I'm here, sir," Pat answered. For a while he would say sir to a dictator.

"You might wanta see this," the Brenden said."I've got all my young studs assembling on theparade ground. Gonna give 'em one big pep talk."

"I'll be there, sir," Pat said.

The young men of Dorchlunt were marching incompany-size units on a flat, hard-packed area tothe north of the temple. The Brenden had comedown in a launch and was seated under a sun­shade on a wooden platform. Pat joined him there.

The ranks of young men marched in perfect uni­son, the troops arranged by height to give perfect symmetry to each file. Pat recognized one of theofficers bellowing out orders as his friend Gorben.

With over two thousand young men standing atrigid attention, the Brenden used a hailer, in order to be heard, and spoke to them of duty, honor, and a return to their rightful glory. When he was fin­ished a mighty cheer went up. The dictator baskedin it, smiled, laughed, waved his hands, and thenstood at attention and saluted as the men marchedoff the parade ground.

"Magnificent," the Brenden said. "God, boy, whatan army. Makes me almost wish that I'd lived inhistoric times when men fought each other toe totoe and tooth to tooth, right, boy?"

"I'm more the lover type," Pat said, and that gota huge laugh.

Brenden waved the others, all uniformed, off theplatform. "Pat," he said, "I guess by this timeyou've got it all figured out, and I'll bet you caneven give me a layman's explanation of the dis­rupter."

"I have a very general idea," Pat said. "Has todo, somehow, with unbalancing the forces thatbind molecules in copper."

"Hell, that's all I understand aboutit,"Brendensaid. "You've got the idea. What I need to know,Pat, is just how you feel about the whole deal." Hepinned Pat with that green-eyed gaze, so like Co­rinne's, and waited.

Pat measured his words for a moment. "Corinnewants to take over the galaxy to feed the hungry. Idon't think that's your motivation."

Brenden roared. "She always was a bleedingheart. Hell, Pat, I'm taking over because I can. Because I got kicked around as a kid. I was hungry a couple of times, not for long, because I damnedwell went out and stole enough to eat. I'm takingover because I had the guts to claw my way upand take over one planet and if you can take overone you can take over as many as there are. I'mtaking over because I want to make a few Zedebastards crawl, and because I think that I'm just alittle smarter than some and can straighten out a few things that have always bothered me." Hegrinned at Pat. "And because I just don't like beingforced to play second fiddle to any man."

"Good reasons," Pat said. "You want to know ifI'm with you?"

"Cory's got her heart set on you, boy."

"I know. That's why I'm here. I'll have to admit,sir—"

"Hell, boy, you're gonna be my brother-in-law,just call me Brenden."

"Thanks. I'll have to admit, Brenden, that I'mnot wild about killing. I don't get all excited aboutblasting poor guys in UP ships."

"Neither do I, neither do I. We're gonna startslow. We'll kill only enough to make believers ofthe others, and of the UP politicians. Hell, Pat, I ain't no murderer, but sometimes events are big­ger than individual men, you know that."