Complete Short Fiction, page 170
And then there were several dozen extensions of the gyroscope idea, already in use in various operations; and then there was—
The picture had never come quite clear. There were always a number of practical obstacles that his trained mind insisted on confronting. These obstacles rose up now to keep the picture he tried to evoke as dim as ever.
Her words and his thoughts about them had another effect. They brought into new, vivid relief the fact that this woman was from a later age than his own. He felt suddenly breathless. He half gasped:
“What age, what century are you from?”
Dorilee turned and looked at him. “The one hundred twentieth century after Christ,” she said, “though we do not chronologize that way.”
Ten thousand years! It was longer than he had thought. The English language must have attained a stage where it was no longer challenged; and thus triumphant had ceased to change except in minor details.
His mind paused, because—Ten thousand years! The time involved suddenly intoxicated him. The 994,999 years of the winged men had had a meaningless quality that briefly staggered the mind, then left it blank and uncomprehending. But ten thousand seemed graspable, somehow intimately near and wonderful.
He forced an end to that singing thought, and rushed on: “And that airboat—how does it float in the air? And why did it go so slowly?” The woman smiled tolerantly. When she spoke, it was in the tone of someone explaining something to a child:
“It works by magnetism. We simply pointed the facer at your submarine. The metal in your ship drew us along at a speed based upon a mathematical proportion to the amount of metal involved. Since it was small, our speed was slow.” Kenlon was immune to her superiority. “But you didn’t come directly towards us,” he pointed out.
Dorilee shrugged. “Certain deviations are mechanically possible,” she said. “In my time, the Earth is covered with straight lines of metal nodes above and to one side of which the traffic streams.”
She was a big, conceited blonde in a male type uniform. She oozed superiority complex; and he didn’t like her at all now. But her very origin in an age a hundred centuries after his own gave her a glamour transcending all personal qualities.
“Any more questions?” she asked.
Questions! Kenlon sighed. His whole being quivered with questions.
“Those other ships,” he started. “Where are they from? What are the people like who are on them? Why—”
He stopped, with an effort. And waited. The woman said:
“Three of the ships have refused all intership contact. The very large one is a space yacht from about 185,000 A.D. One of the others is a patrol gunboat of what they call the Iimen civilization, which seems to have existed about 700,000 A.D. The remaining ship has offered no information, though it accepts visitors.”
She paused. “And now,” she smiled, “let me ask some questions: You know why the winged men have brought you here?”
Kenlon nodded. The woman continued: “Are you going to do as they desire?”
“Frankly, I don’t know,” said Kenlon. “You’ve caught us at a very confused moment.”
He explained about the death of Tones-Gordon—and felt a sharp dismay at the quiet way he could describe the event, as if it was something that had happened long ago. It seemed very far away, already divorced from his emotions.
He thought, shamed: Too much was transpiring too swiftly. He had to keep his mind on the present and the future, not the past.
He finished: “My idea is, this whole situation should be examined with great care before any action is taken.”
The woman was staring at the floor, thoughtfully. Her hands were in her pockets, her manner almost diffident. She looked up abruptly, said decisively:
“That is what I came to find out. In the name of the Sessa Clen, I herewith take control of this submarine.”
“You what?” said Kenlon.
He had half turned from her to speak to the assistant electrical engineering officer, who was standing stiffly at attention beside the chart table chair from which he had leaped when they first entered. Now, staggered, he twisted back to the woman, and simultaneously drew his gun.
The Tenant was in the act of withdrawing her right hand from a side pocket.
“Careful!” Kenlon whipped. “Bring your hands up slowly, and raise them above your head.”
The hand came out, clutching a fistful of white crystals, some of which spilled on the floor at her feet, and lay glittering.
Something flowed from them, something palpable and strong, that held him immovable. With a desperate will, he strove to press the trigger of his aimed revolver; then in a very spasm of panic struggled to open his mouth, to shout a warning. But the immobility extended to Ids fingers and to his face and throat, and to his legs and arms.
Kenlon stood as still as death, his brain roaring with the knowledge that he was paralyzed.
A woman was about to capture a fully armed, fully manned United States submarine.
His confined world continued to be full of a number of things. The Diesels chuttered away; there was the strong feel of the movement of the Sea Serpent. Beyond the thick glass plates of the control room, in front of which the electrical engineering officer was standing, looking even more rigid now, the sea was still washing over the long deck.
From the corner of one eye, Kenlon saw the woman climb down out of sight. He thought in anguish: If only Benjamin or Tedders would look down the hatch—No, that wouldn’t help. The crystals’d get them too.
He stood there.
He felt no pain; nothing. His mind was clear. His body seemed normal. His heart must still be beating; his lungs performing their function; his stomach still digesting the part of the doughnut he had eaten.
Yet he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.
He was ruined; he knew that. The woman didn’t seem to have any murderous intent. She was merely taking control of the submarine, in order to carry out the purpose of the winged men. She had discovered that the Sea Serpent alone could accomplish that purpose: and she hadn’t wasted any time.
No matter what the limitation to her intention, it didn’t make any difference. He was disgraced before his men. Within an hour of inheriting command, he had lost the ship.
After several minutes he caught a flashing glimpse of the woman making, her way towards the engine room and the stern torpedo room. She must have been forward sprinkling her damnable crystals.
This very instant men were lying or sitting or standing down there in whatever position paralysis had struck them—thinking about a commanding officer who had let them down.
Dorilee climbed up into the control room. She was carrying a heavy sack. “Hand guns,” she explained.
“What a terrible ship,” she went on, shuddering. “Everything so confined, and just a narrow corridor between those frightful engines.”
Involuntarily, Kenlon’s mind leaped back to the pigboats in which, as an officer in the naval reserve, he had taken his yearly training cruises. The brief wonder came, what would she have thought of those, compared to which the Sea Serpent was a luxury liner?
The thought snuffed out. He stood there. The expression on his face must have shown his strain. The woman glanced at him sharply.
“Stop it!” she said. “There’s no disgrace in being defeated by superior science. There are ships within a mile of us that would regard the weapons at my disposal as if they were so many toys. I’m sure you’re going to be sensible about this.”
Kenlon knew he wasn’t. He had always recognized that women had a different psychological outlook than men. It took a woman to be completely oblivious to such dishonor as he had now suffered.
She was speaking again: “Ordinarily, we would never have taken such action as this. But the Sessa Clen must be prepared to occupy the marriage bed within two weeks. Or else her place will be taken by her sister.
“You may say, why not, when the winged men finally return us to our time, ask them to see that we re-emerge within seconds of where we entered. They have told me that the mechanical laws of time-travel make it necessary to allow for all the time that passes here.”
She went on: “What was finally decisive was the statement of the winged men that they would permit no one to return to their particular age until the city of the fishmen was destroyed. So you see”—she shrugged—“we have no alternative. We must use your ship to carry out their purpose.”
It was an apology of sorts; grudgingly Kenlon recognized that. There was nothing evil here. He should have known though, should have realized that a woman on her way to be married was more of a human tigress than a human being.
It had all sounded so simple and normal. The fact that her sister would replace her if she didn’t arrive in time showed that it was some monstrous royal or something custom, which everybody in the period would take for granted.
“There is no reason,” Dorilee said, “why there should be any bloodshed.”
The statement was so odd that Kenlon was torn from his bitter meditation. The words seemed meaningless. Except for the two officers and the half dozen men on the bridge, the ship was—
Kenlon’s mind stopped there, and flooded with understanding. Benjamin, Tedders, Durosky and the others. That was it. They had still to lie disposed of; and there must be some difficulty about it.
“Those men outside,” said the woman, “will either have to surrender or suffer serious injury. The neurals do not work in the open.”
The “neurals” must be the paralyzing crystals. As for surrender—quite suddenly Kenlon knew that Benjamin and Tedders were as good as dead.
It wasn’t that navy men didn’t surrender. But not immediately; not until their arms, legs or heads had been shot away.
The grim thought collapsed as, out of the corner of one eye, he saw the head and shoulders of Benjamin bend down over the open hatchway, heard Benjamin say: “A winged man’s coming, sir; he—”
The words broke off ; the officer roared: “What’s going on down there?”
With a jerk, Benjamin drew back, but his voice thundered down to Kenlon above the muffled beat of the Diesels:
“Tedders, drive that boat away.
The rest of you men, grab your guns!”
He must have grabbed his own, for his body came plunging down the ladder. He was followed by five men.
It was beautifully fast work. Normally, it would have overwhelmed a single person. Now, they fell in a heap, and lay rigid. The woman walked over and disentangled them. They sprawled stiffly, looking stupid, amazed, dismayed.
Except for Tedders at the ack-ack gun and Durosky at the helm, the Sea Serpent was a captured ship.
Kenlon pictured the young officer, tensed up there behind the battery of antiaircraft guns. Perhaps in minutes now he would die in a futile outburst of defiance. Futile because his first logical move, even if he succeeded in driving away the air boat, would be to come below.
Kenlon saw that the woman was turning away from the fallen men, their guns gathered into the crook of her arm. She dumped the weapons into her sack, then drew a thin metal bar the size of a comb out of her pocket, and approached Kenlon.
“I want you to go up on deck and persuade your junior officer to be rational. You will be able to do this because this charged plate”—she held up the bar—“will release you from thrall about a minute after I put it into your hand.”
She thrust it downward towards him; and Kenlon felt the cool touch of it against his hand. He hadn’t realized how feverish he was. The coolness was like a breath of air into a hot, dry room.
“As soon as you are able,” said the Tenant, “close your fingers around it. And don’t do anything rash. I can neutralize the bar in a flash.”
He didn’t believe that. Her own immunity must derive from something like this; and if she neutralized his, then she, too, would be subject to the neurals.
In spite of the conviction, he had no intention of testing her statement by counteraction, not now, not until he had a plan.
This whole tiling had to be thought out, even argued before action could be wisely taken. There was a second winged man outside now. If he could manage to tell him the state of affairs, and persuade him that the whole purpose of the winged men was endangered by this highhanded seizure—
The thought drained. Quite automatically he had flexed his fingers; and they moved. They moved.
His mind nearly leaped out of his head, so violently did his emotions react to that return of the ability to move.
And, strangely, just like that, the awful depression of spirits left him. He clutched the bar convulsively, and watched the woman back away, her gaze narrowed on his face, one of her hands resting lightly on a metal rod in her belt. She said:
“As soon as you have talked to your men on deck, I shall give you some clothing, which has the neutralizing element woven into the fabric. You can wear it under your uniform.”
She finished: “There is no reason why you should be under restraint. We have no desire to cause you unnecessary indignity.”
Kenlon said: “You are making a grave mistake. This is not an automatic submarine. You cannot possibly hope to operate it without a skilled crew. You—”
He stopped. Speech had come so naturally that it took a moment to realize that only seconds before his voice could not have sounded. He lifted his arm, then took a step; and it was all easy and natural again. He was free of thrall. Free. He said steadily:
“My advice to you is to give us back possession. I promise to take under consideration an attack against the fishmen without reference to what has happened. You will get nowhere by the course you are pursuing.”
The woman said: “You had better hurry on deck. The situation up there cannot be improving.”
It wasn’t. White as a sheet, Tedders had his gun trained on the air boat; and he was waving at them, threatening.
The women were crouching behind their gunwale, aiming a long metal rod at Tedders. He listened glassily to Kenlon’s explanation of what had happened, said finally: “What am I supposed to do, sir—leave the gun?”
The question shook Kenlon. A little unsteadily, he walked over to the hatch, and called down to the woman:
“You still insist on going through with this?”
“Tell your man,” came the clear, firm answer, “to get away from the gun. Then you invite my Joannas aboard.”
Slowly, Kenlon straightened. He felt old and tired. He stared almost unseeingly out to the gray sea, then up to the mountain in the sky, the lower end of which sagged a third of a mile above him.
The half blank upward glance brought into his view the winged man whom Benjamin had reported. The flying man was circling about three hundred feet up, peering down at the scene. He looked uncertain; his movements lacked purpose.
The very aimlessness ended the slim hope that he might bring the help that was needed within a minute. Kenlon sighed, and turned heavily to his junior.
“All right, Dan,” he said, “come out of there.”
A moment later, the Joannas were briskly jumping aboard. Resistance was at an end.
There was not much physical change in his position. Kenlon wandered disconsolately to the railing, and stared forward. In a vague way, he was aware of the air boat drifting slowly away from the Sea Serpent, one lone Joanna in it. Obviously she was being sent back to the parent ship.
He was aware, too, that of the five Joannas who had come aboard, four went below, leaving one to guard Tedders, Durosky and himself.
One woman to look after three men. Kenlon laughed curtly. In view of the fact that a single female had conquered a ship with a crew of seventy-five, the one guard, in the truest meaning of relative values, actually outnumbered them by about twenty to one.
His reverie ended, as Tedders put his right elbow on the railing, then lowered his weight onto the elbow. The young officer sallied gloomily:
“Is big sister going to tuck us below, too, where we’ll be out of harm’s way?”
Kenlon groaned: “She plans to save me from indignity by letting me walk around clutching this metal bar.”
He lifted the hand and the bar with a vague gesture, then went on:
“I can learn to grin like an ape, maybe I can administer good cheer to the men.
“It might be the only way,” he added hopefully, “of breaking their thralls. One look at me, I mean, and they’d have to get up to punch my face. It would be irresistible.”
“Frankly,” said Tedders soberly, “that doesn’t sound as if it will work, though I’d be willing to add my mug as a specially seductive punching bag.”
He broke off: “What do you think those neurals are made of?”
Kenlon described briefly the scene of energy flow that had impinged on his body.
“I would say the crystals give off electrical or rather electronic impulses that interfere with those nerves which attempt to carry out voluntary actions on impulse or command from the brain.”
He went on grimly: “I have some lunatic notion of waiting for an opportune moment, and then going around and sweeping up all the crystals, and tossing them overboard.”
Said Tedders: “You won’t pull anything like that over on little Dorilee. That woman reminds me of my father’s second wife.”
“I suppose,” said Kenlon, “we’ll just have to accept the situation. I believe she will hand the ship back to us afterwards. My duty, therefore, is to ease the minds of the men, and do everything possible to see that these Jonahs don’t wreck the sub. I can’t let seventy-five men down, or take risks with our sub, because my pride is hurt.”
It was a dismal solution. But Kenlon had arrived at it during the anguished moments before surrender; and every minute that passed made it seem more practical.
“Personally,” he said harshly, “I hate the fishmen for the ruthlessness of their action against the skipper. It was a cold-blooded business, treating us as if we were so many sub-human beasts.
