The compleat collected s.., p.4
The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 4
"Well, what is it?" asked Nelson, then he caught the other's expression and ended, "Oh! You don't know."
Cotrell took off his helmet and flung himself down beside the other. "No, I don't know." His voice was perplexed. He looked completely baffled as he went on, "But Major Thompson was right. It doesn't seem to be a bomb. It's too light to contain enough H.E. to do much damage, and if it's an empty I can't find the slightest trace of a filling valve. And the thing must have been put together by a watch-maker. There isn't a single join anywhere on its surface that I can see."
He paused, thinking. He was beginning to understand just how the Major who had preceded him had felt after spending four hours with the thing. But he, unlike Thompson, couldn't very well pass the buck.
He continued, "I didn't find the skin heating up suddenly the way he did, but then he tried to carry it away with him, whereas I only rolled it over a few times. Apart from that everything checks exactly with Thompson's report. Incidentally, I saw one of his asbestos gloves. It was almost burnt through, so it seems certain that it did get red hot when he lifted it. Up to now I thought he'd been exaggerating that part of it a little."
A SHELL landed with a crash less than a hundred yards away. Nelson winced and Cotrell reached hurriedly for his helmet. They both looked a trifle shame-faced. They weren't used to being this close to the war. Cotrell began speaking again.
"I did find out a little more about it. Maybe it will mean something to you, I can't make a thing out of it." He pulled out a soiled notebook and consulted it. Then he stated, "The skin is made of some extremely hard, non-magnetic metal and is between one eighth and one quarter inches thick. There are also traces of metal, some of it magnetic, at about thirty separate points inside the shell. These small masses of metal are all grouped on, or very close to, the longitudinal axis of the thing. The remaining volume seems to be empty, but as the detector doesn't work on non-metallic material there could be a gas, or a liquid, or a plastic structure of some kind occupying it.
"There is a flat, black, metal disc with a thin white line around its circumference, set flush with one end. I thought at first it was a colour code painted on, but it is definitely metal, very warm to the touch and pitted as though from periodic heating. It is also faintly radio-active. Nothing harmful, mind, but just barely detectable." Cotrell slapped his notebook shut, looked up at Nelson, and grinned, making a joke of the whole thing. He stated, "We have here a hollow, closed cylinder with a metal rod of irregular thickness running down its centre, which is slightly radio-active. Now, would the bright boy facing me please stand up and tell the class what it is?"
Nelson thoughtfully cleaned his glasses, then, replying in kind, piped, "Please Sir, it could be anything—and if I stand up here I'll get a hole in the head."
"You're a big help," the other's tone was scathing. "And," he ended cuttingly, "That was the general idea."
THEY WERE both giving the matter very serious thought even though their cross-talk seemed to make light of it. After Nelson had spoken gloatingly and at some length of just how glad he was that HE hadn't been given charge of this job, he became serious again.
"Does it make a noise?" he asked. "Any ticking or humming noises? It might be some sort of time-bomb."
Cotrell shook his head. "With all this shooting going on around here I couldn't be sure. But there did seem to be a low, irregular ticking, like the sound mice might make scampering about on a tiled floor ..." He stopped suddenly and grew visibly pale. Then in a low, shocked whisper said, "Oh, no."
"What's up?" queried Nelson, then he too, realised the implications of the other's words. Unconsciously he wriggled his shoulders as he protested, "A Bacteriological Bomb. But that's impossible. They wouldn't dare ... Still, maybe they would." He grimaced in disgust, "Augh, I feel lousy already."
"We can't be sure of that yet," said Cotrell quickly, I'll have to take another look, Have you got a magnifying glass?"
Naturally a magnifying glass was about the only thing they hadn't taken with them, but Nelson liberated a pocket flash-lamp from one of the escort and the crude lens from that had to do instead.
For some time now gunfire from the enemy positions had been steadily growing in intensity, and there was considerable air activity as well. With increasing frequency low-flying jets flashed screaming across a sky already streaked with the filmy vapour trails of high-altitude bombers. It looked as if something was afoot. Cotrell, again sprawled alongside the nearest torpedo, could scarcely make himself heard above the din. He was examining minutely the surface of the thing with the glass, and calling out his findings to Nelson who was taking everything down. Details of the black metal disc came first, followed by a description of the white circle around it, which seemed to be a hard plastic. Then he tried to see how the shell as a whole was put together.
At first he had no success, then, "Willie! Willie!" he called excitedly, "Get this down quick. I can see inside. The first eight inches back of the nose have gone transparent, just like that. Don't know what caused it, but I can see right in ..."
Just then something landed nearby with an earth-shaking crash and a few fair-sized rocks came bouncing into the crater. Over the ringing in his ears Nelson heard the other's voice jabbering away as if nothing had happened. He shook his head to clear it and wished his shorthand was faster or that Cotrell would slow down.
"... Tiny, complex mechanisms linked by hair-thin wires, but so small. Our micro techniques can't touch this at all. It seems to be divided into thin-walled compartments of different sizes ... Oh, why can't I have a decent lens, everything blurs and jiggles around ... The inside is filled with a yellowish gas, and in the nose ... Wait! Something moved. It's a snail, no, two snails. But they're going too fast for snails. Maybe ..."
SOMETHING, he couldn't say just what, made Nelson look up. The plane was still quite high, but it was moving awfully fast, straight down. There could be no doubt whatever at whom it was being aimed. Cotrell was yelling, "It's not a bomb. I know what it is now. I can't believe it, but it's a ..." Nelson screamed a warning to take cover but it was drowned in the mounting roar of engines. He did the only thing possible. He reached way out, grabbed an ankle and hauled Cotrell frantically back into the crater. He was just in time.
With a high-pitched whoosh the plane loosed a rocket. They heard it corning, then something tried to push them into the ground and shake them to pieces at the same time. They were deafened, blinded by dust, pelted with falling earth and stones, and a large, jagged-edged chunk of metal dug a hole in the ground three inches from Cotrell's ear, but they were both unhurt. They lay still for a few minutes, trying to convince themselves of this.
The plane didn't make another pass at them, and they heard it roaring off into the distance. After a while the sergeant heading the escort began calling names to see if anyone had copped it. Nobody had. Nelson raised his head and looked hard at Cotrell. Picking his words with great care, he said: "I realise there was considerable noise and confusion when I dragged you in just now. Probably I didn't hear you right, but I could swear you said the word 'Spaceship'. Am I suffering from an auricular condition, or is that what you said?"
Cotrell sat up. His face was dirty and there was a lot of skin missing from his nose and chin as a result of his being dragged on it across several feet of very rugged terrain, but apparently he could not even feel it. His eyes shone with excitement, "That's right," he affirmed. His voice was exultant, almost exalted. "Spaceships. Seven of them. That's all they could be. It explains everything. The sudden transparency of the nose. The tiny machines, controls, wiring, little creatures working at things. They're spaceships, I tell you. An extraterrestrial life-form, and intelligent." He stopped, his mind leaping ahead, trying to grasp what this single great fact would mean to humanity. Then in more normal tones he continued, "Go see for yourself. Here's the glass, take a good look ... Oh."
"What's wrong?" called Nelson, seeing the other's expression change to one of dismayed apprehension. He was already half out of the crater—he didn't believe it, of course, but he was very eager to see just what was coming off here.
"That rocket," Cotrell asked tensely, "Did it hit them?"
"Nah. It landed on the other side of the truck," answered Nelson. Then a puzzled note crept into his voice as he went on, "Funny, it was headed right for us, too, then it sort of wobbled and sheered off. Guess we're just lucky, I suppose." He wriggled away, and was gone for some time. When he came back he looked a bit sick.
"Well?"
Nelson nodded and said grudgingly, "I suppose you're right. They could be spaceships, manned spaceships." He shuddered involuntarily, "Maybe 'manned' is the wrong word. Ugh, those shiny wet lumps. And those pink hairs growing out of them and curling and writhing about. They're sickening. Whatever planet they come from they must have lived under its rocks—its slimiest, dampest, mouldiest rocks. I don't like them at all."
Cotrell was pointing out heatedly and at some length that Intelligence was the important thing, and not the body that housed it, when the sergeant called softly to say someone was coming, and suggested that they keep deathly quiet just in case it wasn't a friend. Cotrell said, "Thank you, Sergeant," and shut up.
SHORTLY afterwards they heard a low-voiced exchange of pass-words, then a corporal in a rather soiled Medical Corps uniform rolled in beside them. He must have been a regular, for while crouching on hands and knees he still somehow gave the impression that he was standing rigidly to attention as he said smartly, "Corporal Barnes. Sir. Message from Field H.Q. Very urgent." He handed it to Cotrell. While it was being opened he turned to Nelson and volunteered, "They sent me with it in case anybody needed a patch. Does anybody?"
Nelson told him no, they'd been lucky so far, but to check with the sergeant and make sure. Then he looked quizzically at Cotrell, "Someone seems mighty concerned about our health." he mused, "fancy sending a Medic."
Cotrell didn't hear him. He was reading aloud from the message. "It's from the General, relayed by hand due to the radio silence order. He says he hopes it reaches us in time. He says the enemy is pushing forward. Nothing serious, but our guys are pulling back temporarily, and that this position has been by-passed but is now almost encircled by enemy armour. Whether we've solved the problem or not we've got to head for home before we're completely cut off. Says to drop the whole thing, he'd rather have a couple of live boffins than two dead heroes, and that that's an order. He also says a counterattack is being mounted and will begin in four hours, and we'll have another chance maybe when we re-take this area. Meanwhile come back at once." He stopped and looked at Nelson distractedly. He crumpled the message viciously and burst out. "But I can't leave. I just can't. Not now."
Nelson was sympathetic, "I know how you feel. This sort of thing doesn't happen very often," he said, making perhaps the greatest understatement of all time, "But orders are orders. And besides," he reasoned, "it's only a matter of time before the enemy mops us up. So far we've been lucky, but that plane must have reported our position. There'll be tanks along, or they'll plaster us with shells any time now. Unless we want to stay here permanently we'd better don our skates and get out of here, fast."
COTRELL looked at him unhappily. He was insane for hesitating even an instant. "I know all that," he said, "But don't you realise we're about to make contact with an intelligent race from another planet, probably from another star system. I know they're little crawling horrors, but we just can't up and leave ..."
"Now look," Nelson broke in. "I'm as broadminded and tolerant as the next guy. I shake hands with the strangest people, and cadge their cigarettes. You get to be that way in this war of ours." He gestured at the sergeant who was wearing, in addition to his usual equipment, a vicious-looking machete and an imposing black beard, and whose face was several shades darker than midnight. "But I won't hang around and get knocked off to no purpose, and I won't let you do it either. And tell me this, how do you expect to communicate? And how can they possibly reply? We'd better pack it in and go before the shelling starts."
Cotrell was silent for several minutes, trying to think of words to put his feelings across. Then, his mind made up, he spoke, "Try to look at this thing objectively. A number of aliens have landed on Earth, the first time in history that this has happened. Unfortunately they landed in the middle of a battlefield just before battle was due to commence, a very bad choice of a landing spot. They took positions beside some metal containers which resembled them roughly in size and shape. Not knowing their thought processes it is impossible to say whether this was done through curiosity or in an attempt at camouflage, or maybe it was a rendezvous point or something like that. Now, the natives, that's us, come to investigate and they reveal themselves. But because we have been seen by other natives who don't like us and wish to kill us. these creatures are shortly going to be blown to smithereens while we go off scot free."
"But ..."
"Now I think this is wrong. I think we're—well ..." he hesitated, then went on defensivelv. "You'll think this silly, maybe, but I feel we are responsible for their safety. This isn't their war. They don't know the score." He paused, then apologetically but very, very stubbornly he ended, "They must at least be warned off before we leave."
NELSON didn't answer. He had known Cotrell for several years as a very likable sort who hid a shy disposition behind a very efficient wall of tough cynicism and bitingly sarcastic wit. Not the sort of crazy fanatic to pull a trick like this. He was uncomfortably aware, moreover, that the other was morally right, but this place would shortly be a crashing hell of erupting earth and red-hot flying steel. Even in this mad world Nelson's life was very precious to him. But he too, was curious about those aliens. He'd like to know just why they'd come ... He brought his attention back to Cotrell, who was speaking again.
"The General wants his two pet geniuses back. Well, we'll let him have one of them. You. Half a loaf, and so on." He broke off and grinned, "Hope you don't mind being called half a loaf." He went on, with forced lightness, "I'll stay behind and scare away our friends, somehow, then I'll follow after you." He called abruptly, "Sergeant!"
Nelson began a protest, but the other was already giving his orders. Cotrell told the sergeant that the area would shortly come under heavy fire. Captain Nelson, the sergeant, and his men were to return at once. He had something to do and would follow them when he had finished it. The sergeant nodded and consulted the corporal quickly about the best route back. In minutes his men were on their way, crawling rapidly, but using every possible scrap of cover. The sergeant hung back, waiting for Nelson.
NELSON couldn't say a word. For the first time in his life his friend had pulled rank on him, and it was because of that friendship that he'd done it. He gripped Cotrell's arm awkwardly and mumbled something about being careful and scrambled away after the sergeant.
It was then that Cotrell saw that the corporal was still in the crater. "What are you waiting for?" he said sharply. He had a lot on his mind.
The corporal, it seemed, was waiting for him. He had been told just how important both technicians were, and he was not to return without them. This had been stressed by his C.O. His C.O. had the reputation of frequently eating his young. His C.O. was a real tartar. He dare not go back without Lt. Colonel Cotrell, and would he be long in finishing up?
The corporal was inclined to argue at first, but finally a shoulder-full of dirty yellow pips glared hard at two lowly chevrons and he too, departed.
He was back five minutes later, looking apologetic but very determined. Nelson was with him.
Nelson began defensively, "A body could get killed out there. No cover. I can't be expected to hide behind pebbles like those other guys, I'm not used to it. Besides," he finished lamely. "I wanted to see what you were doing."
Cotrell gave him a look that told him that he was a liar, a suicidal maniac, and the best friend a man could have all rolled into one, but all he said was, "I haven't done anything yet. I'm glad you did come back, maybe you can help me think of something." He was hiding his very real feelings by being studiously casual and off-hand about the whole thing. He didn't fool Nelson. Turning to the corporal he said lightly, "We'll probably need you before very long, too."
The corporal said "yes sir" and began fiddling absently with the straps of his haversack. It was the one conspicuously marked with a large red cross.
There was a lull in the gunfire, but that didn't mean anything. It would start again any minute with redoubled intensity. Cotrell and Nelson began discussing the aliens' possible systems of communication. Obviously they couldn't hear very well or the noise would have frightened them away long ago, thought Cotrell, but the transparent covering of their control-room made it seem certain that their eyes operated in the visible frequencies. Nelson asked about vibration, and surely they could see the shells falling? Cotrell replied that they might think the vibration was natural volcanic activity. He didn't know why they couldn't see what was happening, but they were certainly completely unaware of their danger. After that he bogged down. The corporal broke the perplexed silence in a low-voice.
"In any stories I've read they always have telepathy." He seemed to be talking to himself.
Nelson, who was lying nearest, regarded him with pleased wonder. He would never have suspected the corporal of having such good taste in reading matter. His estimation of Barnes rose appreciably. Cotrell hadn't heard the remark. Eyes shut and fingers stuck in his ears he was trying desperately to think. Suddenly he exclaimed:
"I think I've got it. How's this. They can see all right, but being so small their field of clear vision is restricted to say, six feet, so that anything happening beyond that distance would appear so hazy or distorted they wouldn't know what it was." He began climbing out of the crater, "I can test that idea, anyway."
