Page 138 - Astounding Pulp V2

138
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 139
GRAY LENSMiN
tered the gigantic teardrop which was municalor in time to issue orders in
techn_ically the Z9M9Z, socially the Di- space combat-
rectrix, a~d ordinarily CFHQ. She had Kinnison · looked at the tank, then
been designed and built specifically to around the full circle of the million-plug
~ Grand Fleet Headquarters, and noth- board encircling it. H e observed the
mg else. She bore no offensive arma- horde of operators, each one trying fran-
men~:. but since she had to protect the tically to do something. :N" ext he shut
s1
pre dmg geniuses of combat she had his eyes, the better to perceive every-
every possible defense. '
thing at once, and studied the problem
. Port Admiral Haynes had learned a for an hour.
hitter lesson during the expedition to
I:elmuth ·s base, Long before that rela- " Attention, everybody !" he thoug:ht
then. ''Open all circuits--<lo nothing
ti_ vely small Grand Fleet got there he was
sick to the core, realizing that fifty thou- at all for a while.'' He then called
Haynes.
sand vessels simply could not be con-
trolled or maneuvered as a group. If "I think that we can clean up this
mess if you'll send over some Simplex
tl:iat base had been capable of an offen-
analyzers and the crew of technicians.
sive. or even of a real defensive, or if
Boskone could have put their fleets into Helmuth had a sweet set-up on multi-
that star cluster in time. the Patrol plex controls, and J alte had some ideas
that we can adapt to fit this tank. If
would have been defeated ignominiously;
and Haynes, wise old tactician that he we add them all together, we may have
was. knew it only too well. something."
Therefore, immediately after the re-
turn from that "triumphant" venture A N D by the time \Vorse] arrived, they
he gave orders to design and to build'. did.
a~ wh~tever cost. a flagship capable of "Red lights are fleets already in mo-
dr~ectmg efficiently a million combat tion," Kinnison explained rapidly t? the
UllltS. V elantian. "Greens are fleets still at
Th~ " tank"-the three-dimensional their bases. Ambers are the planets
galactic chart which is a necessary part the greens took off £ro111-connected,
of every pilot room- had grown and you see, by Ryerson string-lights. Tlie
grown as 1t became evident that it must white star is us, the Directrix. That
be t(ie prime agency in Grand Fleet Op- violet cross 'way over there is J alte·s
~rattons. Finally, in this last rebuild- planet, our first objective. T he pi~k
t~g, the tank was seven hundred feet in comets are our free planets, their tads
dt~meter and eighty feet thick in the showing their intrinsic velocities. Be-
middle--over seventeen million cubic ing so slow, they had to start long ago.
fe~t. of space in which more than t wo The purple circle is the negasphere. J t's
m'.lhon . tiny lights crawled hither .and on its way, too. You take that side, 1'11
thither Ill hopeless confusion. For, after take this. T hey were ~upposed Lo start
the techni<:ians and designers bad put from the edge of the twelfth sector. The · h d t bed meters climb,
tl~at tauk mto actual service, they had idea was to make it a smooth, bowl- S ome ships attacked on every an , wa c
h
d
.
.'
-
. '
discovered that it was useless. No avail- shaped sweep across the Galaxy, con- strazn against stopping-an saw uge converters hope-
ah!e mind had been al,le eithel' to per- verging upon the objective, bt1t each l essly overloaded, vanish in gouts of atomic flame.
ceive any situation as a whole 0 1· to of the fleet commanders apparetttly
identify with certainty auy light or wants to run this war lo suit himself. . 1 fe p~inted his Simplex at the red board. An operator flic!ced ~. swi_tch_.
group of lights needing correction. And l .ook at that guy there-he's beating !ght "'.hich had so offendingly sprung "Grand Fleet Operations ! K111n1son
1
as for linking up any particular light the gun by ' n ine thousand parsecs. mlo bemg. There was a whirring click snapped. ,;Why are you taking off
with its individual, bla1tlcet-proof com- Watch me pin his ears back!" and the 1111111ber 449276 flashed above a without orders?"