Tales of the Flying Mountains (12 page)

The pilot didn't think in any such high-flown terms. He'd just gotten sick and tired of being taxed to support a bureaucracy which seemed interested only in regulating his life for him.

The radio buzzed. A call on the universal band.

“Huh!” he growled. “I'm on to that stunt, buster. You broadcast, and I turn up my receiver, and you detect that.” He went on to suggest, in some detail, what the American could do with his 'caster.

Although—wait! The signal was coming in much too strong. Either the warship had gotten close, or it was sending a maser beam. Sweat prickled forth on his skin. He got busy with his instruments.

Both cases were true. The ship had locked a beam onto his vessel and it was coming about to make rendezvous.

So its sky-sweeping radars had picked him up after all, and never lost him again.

No choice, after that, but to answer. He flipped a switch. “Scoopship
Whiskey Johnny
receiving call,” he said in a flat basso.

“NASS
Chicago
transmittin'. Prepare to match velocities.”

“What the double blue hell is this? I'm minding my own business.”

“I doubt that,” drawled the Texan voice. “You're from Sam's for Pallas. Don't bother denyin' it. We got plenty good data on your path. So you're a courier.”

“You're out of your ever-loving mind,” said the asterite, in rather more pungent language.

“What else would you be, son, in a small fast boat like that? Listen, don't try to get rid of your dispatches. We're near enough to register anything you pitch out the air lock. As of this minute, you're a prisoner of war and subject to discipline.”

Kirk warned me about narcoquizzes. And if I keep on claiming to be a civilian, I could be shot as a spy
.

“Identify yourself,” said the voice.

“Lieutenant Robert Flowers, Space Force of the Asteroid Republic,” the pilot snapped.

Briefly, furiously, he considered making a run for it. He could out-accelerate a capital ship by several gees. Probably he could evade a missile. But no. The warhead needn't burst very close for radiation to kill him. Or a laser gun might track him and gnaw through to his engine. Flowers cursed some more and donned the battered officer's cap which put him legally in uniform.

“Well, you rebels call it a republic,” said the Texan. “Okay, punch these here instructions into your autopilot. And then you might as well relax. You'll be locked away for quite a spell, I reckon.”

The cruiser was a great ovoid, dully agleam in the harsh spatial sunlight. Rifles poked dinosaurian from their turrets, missile launchers gaped like mouths. The scoopship edged inward, dwarfed.

“Cease drive,” came the order. They weren't taking chances on a suicide plunge.

“Smelly,” Flowers obeyed. He stuck a fresh cigar between his teeth and got up a good head of steam.

A geegee beam reeled him in. A boat hatch opened. He felt the slight shock and heard the clang as
Whiskey Johnny
entered a cradle. Now steel enclosed him. Air whistled back to the compartment. Four bluejackets appeared, and motioned him out. He slid back the canopy, which he had already unsealed, and jumped down. Smoke gushed from his mouth, into the nearest face. The man gasped and staggered.

“All right, funny boy,” said the ensign in charge. “Give me that.”

“Huh?” cried Flowers. “Can't a joe even have a smoke?”

“Not if I say he can't.” The ensign yanked the cigar from the prisoner's lips, threw it to the deck and ground it under his heel. “Frisk him, Justus. Iwasaki, get his dispatches.”

Flowers submitted.
I could take all these pups in a rough-and-tumble, and Judas, I'd love to
, he thought,
But their sidearms are a bit much.

Iwasaki, in the cockpit, lifted a small steel tube. “Would this be it, sir?”

“I suppose so. Toss.” The ensign caught it. “Commander Ulstad will know. But search the whole craft and report anything unusual. You others come with me.”

They went unspeaking down long, bleak corridors. The crewmen they passed stared at Flowers—for the most part, without the ensign's hostility. This had been a gentlemen's war, on the whole, and the asterite cause had its sympathizers in North America. After all, the colonists were American, too, and the rebellion was for the sake of that individual freedom to which lip service was still paid at home.

Probably the ensign was impatient to get back to his girl.

A murmur went through the metal, a slight shiver was added to the steady one g of the interior field. The ship was under weigh again, returning to its patrol orbit.

At the end of the walk, Flowers was urged through a door. He found himself in a small office. It was furnished with proper naval austerity, but a few scenic views of Earth were pasted on the bulkheads, and the desk bore pictures of wife and children. The man behind was lean, erect, gray at the temples, his long face reasonably kind.

However, onto this cabin there opened an interrogation lab.

The ensign saluted. “Reporting with prisoner, sir. He had this aboard his boat.”

“Let me see.” Commander Ulstad—must be him, and he must be Intelligence—reached for the tube. He unscrewed the cap and shook out a scroll of shiny plastic. Spreading it on his desk, he looked for a moment at the blank surface.

“Yes, evidently his dispatches,” he murmured. “Magnetic, what else?” He rose and went into his laboratory. Flowers saw him thread the scroll into a scanner. The machine clicked to itself. A screen flickered with shifting dots, lines, curves.

Flowers knew, in a general way, how the system worked: analogously to an old-fashioned tape recording. The visual pattern of the message was encoded in a series of magnetic pulses which imposed a corresponding pattern on iron particles embedded in the plastic. Of course, for military purposes you first enciphered the message and then put a scrambler in the recording circuit. The result couldn't even be seen, let alone cleared, without a descrambler in the playback.

Ulstad frowned and made adjustments. Realization jarred through Flowers:
He expects to protect the thing. Blast and befoul! Somehow they've learned our scrambler patterns
.

The officer tried several other settings. Nonsensical images gibed at him. Flowers sank into a chair. A slow, happy grin spread across his mouth. So the Republic had gotten wise and adopted a new code, huh? Gr-r-reat!

“Well.” Ulstad returned. Excitement barely tinged his voice. “We seem to have caught a rather big fish.” He punched the intercom. “Commander Ulstad here. Get me Captain Thomas.”

He sat down and held forth a pack of cigarettes. “Would you like a smoke, Lieutenant Flowers?” he invited.

The asterite leered at the ensign, who stood in the doorway with his guards. “How about that, chum?” he said, and accepted. “Thanks.”

Ulstad turned on a recorder. “You understand I have to ask you some questions,” he said. “Please state your correct name, rank, and serial number.”

“Robert Henry Flowers, Space Force lieutenant, number … uh, I never can remember the mucking thing.” He read it off his ID bracelet. That was one more bit of junk he meant to throw into a sunbound orbit, when the war was over and he could be his own man again.

Ulstad smiled. “You don't look like anyone named Flowers,” he remarked.

“Yeah, I know. That's how come I've got this busted nose and such. You should'a seen those other bums, though. I don't take being razzed.”

“You won't be. I have every intention of treating you with the respect due a commissioned officer.” The intercom buzzed. “Excuse me.”

The cruiser's captain spoke out of it. “Yes, Commander, what do you want?”

“About this courier we just captured, sir,” Ulstad told him. “I can't read his dispatches. That means the enemy has changed the scrambler code again, and no doubt the ciphers as well.”

“So?”

“So in the first place, sir, the enemy probably realizes that we have cracked his last set of codes. He doesn't change them often or lightly, when word about new arrangements has to be sent over lines of communication as long as his. Therefore, our own GHQ has to know. Then second, this particular message must be delivered for analysis as fast as possible. I respectfully suggest that we shoot a speedster off to Luna Base at once.”

“Um-m-m,” grunted the captain. “Don't like that. Too many asterite frigates skulking around.”

“Well, then, we'd better make rendezvous with a ship able to defend herself, and send the message by her.”

“We've mighty few ships to spare, Commander.” The captain paused. “But this is important. I'll contact CINCOBELT when our position allows, and they'll see what can be done.”

“Thank you, sir.” Ulstad turned off the intercom.

His gaze went to Flowers, who had gone rigid, and he nodded. “Yes,” he said, “we have computers at Luna Base which can discover any scrambler pattern and then go on to break any cipher. Not too easily, I confess. You have some fiendishly clever people in your code section. But the machines can always grind out the answer, by sheer electronic patience.”

Flowers recollected some remarks overheard when he reported for briefing. He hadn't paid much attention. But … yeah, asterite Intelligence must suspect the truth. There had been comings and goings of late, couriers bringing secret word from Pallas to Sam's as well as to other Republican centers. Only the higher-ups knew what that word amounted to. A warning?

His bemusement vanished in a puff of indignation. Space was too vast for the North Americans to blockade very effectively those places too well armed to capture. Most boats got through. Why did
his
have to be among the unlucky ones?

“I suppose you have no idea what message you were conveying,” said Ulstad conversationally.

“Think I'd tell you if I did?” bristled Flowers.

“Yes, under drugs and brain stimulation,” said Ulstad.

“Well, I don't know!”

“We'll find out.”

“You rust-eaten mutant——”

“Please.” Ulstad waved back one of the guards, who had taken a forward step with anger on his face. His own tone stayed mild. “The process doesn't hurt or do any damage. We're fighting this war by the Geneva convention, the same as you people are. But still, we consider it the suppression of an insurrection, which gives us the right to use police procedures. Your interrogators do likewise to our boys, without that legality.”

Flowers finished his cigarette and flipped the butt into a disposal. “You can stuff those quibbles,” he said. “Get on with your dirty work so I can get out of here.”

“What's your hurry, Lieutenant? You'll be aboard the
Chicago
for a number of hours, till we can arrange your transfer to a supply ship. And it will only be going to Vesta, where you'll sit out the war in a prison camp. Dull place. We'll do our best to make you happy, on this ship. Cool your motors. Enjoy our hospitality. Would you like some coffee?”

Flowers swallowed his rage. Doubtless Ulstad was trying to disarm him, but the fellow seemed decent at heart. “Druther have booze,” he said.

“Sorry. Me too, but regulations.” Ulstad crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. “Let's get acquainted. I'm always interested to meet a colonist. You weren't born out here, were you?”

Flowers had no wish to spill military information; not that he had much. But by gabbing a little while, he post-poned the humiliation of narco. Besides—“Brooklyn,” he said. “Moved to space at eighteen. Uh, my parents are still alive. You wouldn't know about them, would you?”

“'Fraid not. I'm from Wisconsin myself. Your folks must be all right, though. The government doesn't discriminate against anyone who happens to have rebel kinfolk, as long as they keep their own noses clean.” Ulstad kindled another cigarette. “Really, we're not the monsters your more overheated propagandists claim. In fact, our society is a good deal more benevolent than yours.”

“Yeah. So benevolent that I felt smothered, every visit I made back home.”

“
De gustibus non disputandum est
, which personally I translate as ‘There is no disputing that Gus is in the east.' You weren't a Jupiter diver in civilian life, I'm sure of that.”

“No, a rockjack. Construction gang superintendent, if you must know. We only use scoopships for messenger boats because they're fast. Their regular pilots are too good for that kind of job. Do better at captaining warcraft.”

“How well I realize that,” Ulstad sighed. “I wonder, though, why you don't send more stuff directly by maser.”

Flowers clammed up.

Ulstad grinned. “All right, I'll tell you,” he said. “First, our side has too good a chance of intercepting a beam; and evidently your Intelligence suspects we can break your cryptograms. A courier flits away from the ecliptic plane and probably makes a safe trip. Second, if we really can use your own ciphers, and you relied too much on radio, we could send misleading messages to your commanders.” He shrugged. “Of course, the courier system ties up boats that might be put to better use elsewhere. But then, it ties up a lot of our fleet on patrol duty, so honors are even.”

“Not quite,” Flowers snapped. “Especially after the last battle.”

“The engagement near Sam's, you mean? I take it you were there?”

“I sure was, chum.”

“In what capacity?” drawled Ulstad.

Flowers crammed on a deceleration vector. “Never mind. It's enough that you took a licking.”

“We'd at least like to know what happened to those of our ships which never reported back. Were all of them utterly destroyed?”

“I suppose so.”

Ulstad leaned across the desk. “Even if you weren't told officially, you may have heard something.” His smile was wistful. “I'm interested for private reasons. A nephew on the
Vega.
”