The Escape Orbit (9 page)

It did not take Warren long to realize that there were unsuspected depths to this middle-aged, statuesque female with the nervous and almost impudently respectful manner. She was one of the large number of female officers rejected by the Committee because of the embarrassment of her sex, but that did not stop her from cherishing Committee ideals—like the other girls on the post she wanted to do everything possible to bring about the Escape.

She was in touch with a great many non-Committee sources of information in Andersonstown, she explained that evening while Fielding and Warren were having dinner with her, and she realized that for the best results the Marshal should put across his ideas and leave before the Fleet Commander arrived to rally the opposition. Lieutenant Nicholson had therefore taken the liberty of arranging a meeting between a representative group of citizens and the Marshal to take place at the Post early next day.

When he heard that Warren felt like kissing the Lieutenant and almost said so. But he checked the impulse. It would have definitely been
lèse majesté
, and Fielding would probably have wrung deep, dark psychological meanings out of it.

Warren was surprised to find next morning that the representative group of citizens numbered upwards of two hundred, although he was not surprised to see that the majority of them were girls. Not that he could see them very clearly, of course, because the only direct light coming into the assembly hut was from the trap above Warren’s head, so that the area around his table and chair was spotlighted while in the audience he could see only shadowy rows of faces. But he knew that Nicholson, Fielding and the others of his party were strategically placed among his listeners, the intention being to demonstrate the new and more cordial feelings towards non-Committee officers as well as to answer the sort of questions which could not be asked directly of a Sector Marshal. Warren had deliberately delayed his arrival so that those questions could be answered before he arrived.

He began quietly by outlining the war situation as he, one of the officers responsible for overall strategy, saw it, giving information which was top secret and restricted without the slightest hesitation. It was a picture of a long, costly war which had reached the stalemate of mutual exhaustion. Compared with the large-scale offensives mounted during the early decades of the war, he told them, it would require only a relatively feeble effort now by either side to end it. But neither side was capable of making this effort. The space service demanded a very special type of person, and after sixty years of war the type had become extremely rare.

In a voice which was not so quiet he went on to tell of highly confidential reports which had reached him during and after many operations, of ships which had failed to make rendezvous because key members of the crews had suicide, or mutinied, or shown in some other shameful fashion their inability to withstand the strain of a job which all too often was simply a few hectic minutes of action sandwiched between months of utter monotony. It was a recognized fact that the more highly intelligent and stable personalities could study or otherwise exercise their minds so as not to let them dwell too much on those few minutes during the months before they occurred, or during the equally long postmortem period when they were returning to base without some of the friends or husbands or wives with whom they had set out. The vast majority of present-day officers lacked these twin qualities of stability with high intelligence and could not withstand this strain, a strain which was being further aggravated by the fact that purely mechanical failures in the ships themselves were also on the increase.

At no time did Warren tell them in so many words that the population of this prison planet, should they return to active service, could bring about the end of the war in their favor within a few years. In every one of them, Warren was convinced, there was a small voice saying it for him.

“… This place is not escape-proof,” he went on. “You know enough about the Anderson Plan and the work already done on it to know that the number of officers directly concerned with the capture of the guardship is relatively small. The part which the rest of you will be called on to play is also small, but important. From most of you I will require simply your moral support, which is important, believe me! From a few others there will be the added inconvenience of moving their families and belongings to safety a few months before E-day, should the dummy be placed in an inhabited area. As well, I will have to ask for volunteers with the necessary aptitude or interest in the work to help with Major Hutton’s research projects, and we will need officers who have the talent for it to donate a few hours a day to compiling textbooks and training manuals, or to teaching. Then there is the problem of the children…”

Warren could not see faces clearly in that dim room, but he noticed quite a few heads come up sharply, including the bald, shining pate of Anderson himself, and he felt the atmosphere begin to congeal—just as it had congealed at the Nelson farm and in the other homes and villages where he had brought up this highly ticklish subject.

“… As you know,” Warren continued, veering away from it temporarily, “there are a number of officers here who, although they are extremely valuable people, will be unable to return to active service because of age, family ties and so on. Again, some of you have been here so long your early training may be out of date. That is why I want textbooks and training manuals prepared, circulate and studied so that you can be fitted for ship service or, in the case of older officers or those who have acquired families, for training commands. And while you are busy bringing each other’s education up to date, you must give some thought to the children…”

Next to the Escape itself, Warren knew, his greatest problem was the large number of children born to the prisoners and the very mixed feelings of these officers regarding them. Coupled with the natural feelings of responsibility and affection towards them there was a definite feeling of shame that they were there in the first place, because no self-respecting officer would even consider having children while on ship service or while a prisoner of war—although it could be argued that the situation here was a case of being marooned rather than imprisoned. But Warren did not seek to chide or criticize, and because they were expecting him to do both they would be relieved when he did neither, and tend to be more sympathetic and less critical of the things he did say. Which was why he stressed the problem of the children and did not even mention the Escape, giving the impression that getting off the planet was simply a matter of time and as certain to occur as the Tuesday of next week.

“… Through circumstances beyond their control,” he went on seriously, “these children have been born into a very primitive world. When they return to civilized society I would not like to think of them being hurt or embarrassed in any way because of illiteracy, or even partial illiteracy.”

“And now,” he concluded, resuming his seat, “are there any questions?”

The first question came within seconds from a man, dimly seen but with a young voice, at the back of the hut. It was a searching, detailed question having to do with certain technical aspects of the Escape itself, proving to Warren that verbal sleight-of-hand had not worked with one person, at least.

“If you don’t mind I’ll ask Flotilla-Leader Anderson to answer that question,” Warren said. “After all, it’s his plan we’re using…”

And now I’m using Anderson, too, Warren thought with a growing feeling of shame. The Flotilla-Leader could be expected to defend his own plan better than anyone else was capable of doing. But the very act of defending his own brainchild proclaimed that he, the leading citizen of the town which had been named for him, was supporting the Marshal, and if he had not been an old man and grown a little stiff in his thinking he would have realized that he was being used.

All at once Warren felt that he was becoming a quite despicable character. It was not simply the Anderson business which had brought on the feeling; it was the fact that he was lying to everybody, including himself. Without promising anything in so many words he had given the impression that none of the activities which had gone on among the prisoners would be the subject of a court martial, or that officers who had married and had children on the prison planet would not be expected to return to ship service while their youngsters were cared for by institutions. Certainly he would exert every iota of his very considerable authority as a Sector Marshal to bring this about, but he could not be absolutely sure of how the High Command would view the situation here or how the desperate shortage of officers would affect their thinking. And there was his not quite accurate picture of the war situation. It would all have been much simpler if everyone were as keen as the Committeemen, and there had been no children to worry about and no necessity to lie and cheat and play people off against each other.

He became aware that Anderson, who despite his age had retained a firm voice and the habit of command, had demolished the first questioner and that another officer was on her feet. After giving name, rank and qualifications she asked if it was possible for her to volunteer for duty with Major Hutton’s research section.

Warren told her that it was.

“But … but…” she began, then stopped.

“I can see that you are a girl, Lieutenant Collins,” Warren said, in a tone which was complimentary rather than sarcastic, “and I have a sneaking suspicion that it is not only patriotic zeal and the urge to escape which is driving you. I am aware of the situation here, you see, and I can say that I have the greatest respect and admiration for officers like yourself who have resisted the pressures to adopt polygamy as a solution. But there are certain aspects of this duty, certain dangers, which you should consider. Not only is the terrain rugged between Hutton’s mountain and this town, with the danger of battlers every mile of the way, but at the end of the trip there is the frightful risk of being mauled by two hundred and fifty men who have not seen a girl for…”

They laughed longer than the crack warranted, he thought, but when they had settled down again the questions were simply requests for information rather than subtly worded objections. And by the time the meeting ended Warren had eight more volunteers and the questioning had turned to the possibility of obtaining leave on their various home planets after the Escape.

He knew than that he had them, and that there was little if anything that Peters would be able to do about it.

The complex system of tunnels and chambers had been carved out of the solid rock to duplicate the major corridors and compartments of the great Bug guardship, Hutton told him, and the dimensions and proportions were as accurate as repeated psychological probing of the memories of the prisoners could make them. As he spoke the major sounded intensely proud of the place—with justification, Warren thought.

“This was part of the mine’s original workings,” Hutton went on, “since bypassed because of low yield. Someone remembered that the useless tunnel was approximately the same length as the central corridor of the guardship, so we decided to cut out Control, Drive and shuttle-cock compartments and use it for training assault groups. The later additions and refinements—cross corridors, the Bug living quarters that we know about, dummy controls and Drive housings—were and are useful in training, but they also served as make-work for the people who, with nothing but assault drills to occupy them, would otherwise go stale. Only the more important compartments have been reproduced and the bulkheads are, of course, greater than scale thickness because of the necessity of supporting the system. The entry locks have been made as bulky and difficult to operate as the real ones, but the two things which we cannot hope to reproduce are the Bug lighting and the weightless conditions…”

Hutton broke off as another assault group pounded along the corridor past them. The men wore kilts, but there were bulky wickerwork baskets covering their heads and heavy logs strapped to their shoulders to simulate the equipment they would have to carry.

“Those kilts give too much freedom of movement,” Warren said. “The drills should be more life-like. Can you reproduce the Bug atmosphere…” he broke off, nearly strangling himself in an effort not to cough.

“It
is
bad today, sir,” said Hutton apologetically. “The wind must be blowing up the gorge again.”

The base of Hutton’s Mountain was riddled with interconnecting tunnels, labs, living quarters and the ventilating system which rendered them livable. The air inlets, which also served as observation and communications tunnels, joined the main network at several points while a single outlet used the chimney effect to carry away the smoke and heat from the smelter and machine shops, at the same time drawing fresh air into and through the rest of the system. This outlet emerged some distance up the mountain in a gorge so narrow and steep that the river responsible for its formation fell in a series of spectacular cataracts, the spray from which merged with the smoke so effectively that it was impossible to distinguish them at a distance of a few hundred feet much less from an orbiting guardship. But when the wind blew directly into the gorge, as it did a few times a month, the smoke did not escape completely and the interior of the mountain became barely habitable.

“Is it necessary to duplicate Bug air, sir?” Hutton asked suddenly. “There are other gases easier to produce which would be unpleasant enough to make them careful without being lethal.”

Warren shook his head. “These drills have become … well, drills—something performed without conscious thought. That frame of mind will have to go. Besides, your people working on the assault suits will be that little bit more careful if they know that the wearer can die, during practice as well as on the big day, if they make a slip.”