‘You haven’t heard of them? I’m surprised. However, it can do no harm now. They are very small missiles, used in a spread-out flock. A Satellite can easily meet one, or several, ordinary missiles with counter-missiles and explode them at a safe distance, but with missiles that come to the attack like a shoal of fish, defence is difficult, and some will always get through - or so it is claimed.’
‘And did they, General?’ Troon asked. He gave no indication of knowing that the British Satellite which his father had helped to construct, was disabled, and nothing had been heard from the American Satellite since the second day of hostilities.
The General shook his head.
‘I cannot say. By the time we had our leaks repaired and our mast up again, there was a message from H.Q. saying that it had lost touch with our Satellites....’
His earlier formality had eased, and he went on more easily, as a man telling his story.
‘We thought then that we had, as you say, come through. But it was not yet certain that there would be no further attack, or that more cracks in the roof might not open, so we kept our suits handy. That was very fortunate for some of us.
"Five earth-days ago - that is four whole days after the American Station was hit - the man on television watch thought he caught a glimpse of something moving among the rocks on the crater floor to the north of us. It seemed improbable, but he held the masthead scanner on the area and presently he caught another movement - something swiftly crossing a gap between two rocks - and he reported it. The Duty-Officer watched, too, and soon he also caught a snatch of movement, but it occurred too rapidly for him to be sure what it was. They switched in a telephoto lens, but it reduced the field of view, and showed them nothing but rocks, so they went back to the normal lens just in time to see what looked like a smooth rock appear from the cover of one ordinary jagged rock and slither behind another. At this point the Duty-Officer reported to me, and I went down to join them in the main control-chamber.
‘Viewing conditions were difficult on account of the cross-light - the dawn had only begun the previous Earth-day, so that the long shadows gave dark bars of cover, but anything that moved in the sunlight also threw a long shadow to catch the eye. After a few minutes’ watching I had to agree that something, though I could not distinguish what, was moving out there, apparently in sharp, sudden dashes. Once, it paused in the open. We hurriedly cut in the telephoto lens again, but before we could focus, the thing had flashed away, and become invisible in a dark patch.
‘We alerted the guard to stand by with rocket-tubes, and went on watching. The thing kept on dodging about, suddenly shooting out of a black shadow, or from behind a rock, and vanishing again. There was no doubt that it was gradually coming closer, but it seemed in no hurry to reach us.
‘Somebody said: “I think there must be two of them.” The appearances and disappearances were so erratic that we could not be sure. We tried radar on it, but at that angle and among so much broken rock, it was practically useless. We could only wait for the thing to reach more open ground, and show itself more clearly.
‘Then there was report from the guard of another moving object, somewhat further west. We turned the scanner that way, and observed that there was indeed a similar something there that dodged about among the rocks and shadows in the same, unidentifiable way.
‘Over an hour went by before the first of them reached the more open ground at a range of eleven kilometres from us. But even then it was some time before we could get a real idea of it - for it was too small on the normal lens to show detail, and too erratic for the telephoto to follow it. Before long, however, there were three of the things all skirmishing wildly about the crater floor with sudden rushes forward, sideways, any direction, even back, and never staying still long enough for us to make them out clearly in the cross-light.
‘If our armament had included short-range bombardment missiles, we should have used them at the first sighting, but they were not a weapon that had seemed reasonable equipment for a Moon Station, and we could only wait for the things to come within practicable range of the portable rocket-tubes.
‘Meanwhile they continued to dash hither and thither zigzagging madly about the crater floor. It was uncanny. They made us think of huge spiders rushing back and forth, but they never froze as spiders do; their pauses were no more than momentary, and then they were off again; and one never could tell which way it would be. They must have been travelling quite thirty or forty metres to make an advance of one metre, and they were in an extended line so that we could only get one, or perhaps, for a moment, two of them, on the screen at the same time.
‘However, during the time it took them to cover the next two kilos we were able to get better views and impressions of them. In appearance they were simple. Take an egg, pull it out to double its length, and that is the shape of the body. Put long axles through it near the ends, and fasten tall, wide-tyred wheels on them - tall enough to give it a good ground clearance. Mount the wheels so that they have a hundred and eighty degrees of traverse - that is, so that the treads can be turned parallel with the lines of the axle, whether the wheels themselves are before or behind the axle. And you have this machine. It can move in any direction - or spin in one spot, if you want it to. Not, perhaps, very difficult once you have thought of the idea. Give it a motor in each wheel, and an electronic control to keep it from hitting obstacles. That is not very difficult, either.
‘What is not so clear is how you direct it. It was not, very clearly, by dead reckoning. We thought it might be responding to our radio, or to the rotation of our radar scanner, or to the movements of our television pick-up, but we tested all those, and even switched off our screen for some minutes, but the guard outside reported no effect. Nor was it detecting and seeking any of our electric motors; we stopped every one of them for a full minute, without any result. It was just possible that the things were picking up an emanation from our power-pile, but that was well shielded, and we already had decoy radiators to deflect any missiles that might try that. I myself think it probable that they were able to detect, and to respond to, the inevitable slight rise of temperature in the station area. If so, there was nothing we could have done about it.’
The General shrugged, shook his head, and frowned. He went on:
‘What we faced, in essence, was a seeking missile on wheels. Not difficult to construct, though scarcely worth attempting for use in a simple form - too easy a target for the defence. So what those Americans had done, the frightening thing they had done, was to introduce a random element. You see what I mean? They had put in this random stage, and somehow filtered the control through it...
He thought again for a moment.
‘Machines do not live, so they cannot be intelligent. Nevertheless, it is in the nature of machines to be logical. The conception of an illogical machine seems to be a contradiction in terms. If you deliberately produce such a thing, what have you? Something that never existed in nature. Something alien. What you have done is to produce madness without mind. You have made unreason animate, and set it loose. That is a very frightening thing to think about....
‘But here, among these not-quite-machines that were scuttering about the crater floor like water-boatmen on a pond, there was a controlling thread of ultimate purpose running through the artificial madness. Their immediate actions were unpredictable, insane, but their final intention was just as sure as the bomb that each was carrying in its metal belly. Think of a maniac, a gibbering idiot, with one single continuing thread of intention - to murder. ...
‘That is what those machines were. And they kept on coming with short, or very short, or not so short crazy rushes. They darted and dodged forward, sideways, backwards, obliquely, straight, or in a curve; one never knew which would be next - only that, after a dozen moves, they would be just a little closer.
‘Our rocket men opened fire at about five kilos. A sheer waste of course; one could as well have hoped to hit a fly on the wing with a peashoo
ter. Mines might have stopped them - if they did not have detectors - but who would have sanctioned the use of valuable rocket-space to bring mines to the moon? All our men could do was to hope for a lucky shot. Occasionally one of them would be hidden for a moment or two by the burst of an explosion, but it always reappeared out of the dust, dodging as crazily as ever. Our eyes and heads ached with the strain of trying to follow them on the screen, and to detect some pattern in their movements - I’m sure myself that no pattern existed.
‘At three kilos the men were doing no better with their shooting, and were starting to show signs of panic. I decided that at two kilos we would withdraw the men and get them below.
The things kept on coming, as madly as ever. I tell you, I have never seen anything that frightened me more. There was the dervish-like quality of the random madness, and yet the known deadly purpose. And all the time there was the suggestion of huge, scuttering insects so that it was difficult not to think of them as being in some alien way alive...
‘Some of the rocket bursts did succeeded in peppering them with fragments now and then, but they were not harmed. As they approached the two-kilo line I told Colonel Zinochek, here, to withdraw the patrol. He picked up the microphone to speak, and at that moment one of the things hit a rocket bomb. We saw it run right into the bomb.
‘The explosion threw it off the ground, and it came down on its back. The diameter of the wheels was large enough to allow it to run upside down. It actually began to do so, but then there was a great glare, and the screen went blank.
‘Even at our depth the floor of the chamber lifted under us, and cracks ran up two of the walls.
‘I switched on the general address system. It was still live, but I could not tell how much of the station it was reaching. I gave orders for everyone to put on space-suits, and stand by for further instructions.
‘One could hope that the explosion of one machine might have set off the others, but we could not tell. They might have been shielded at the moment, or, even if they were not, either, or both, of them might have survived. Without air there is not the usual kind of blast and pressure-wave ; there is flying debris, of course, but what else? So little work has been done on the precise effects of explosions here. Our mast had gone again, so that we were without radar or television. We had no means of telling whether the danger was over, or whether the machines were still scurrying about the crater floor like mad spiders; still working closer...
‘If they were, we reckoned that it should take them about thirty-five minutes to reach us, at their former rate.
‘No half-hour in my life has been as long as that one. Once we had our helmets on, and the intercoms were working, we did our best to learn what the damage was. It appeared to be fairly extensive in the upper levels, for there were few replies from there. I ordered all who could to make their way down to the lowest levels, and to stay there.
‘Then there was absolutely nothing we could do but wait ... and wait ... Wondering if the things were indeed still skirmishing outside, and watching the minute-hand crawl round....
‘It took them - or it - exactly thirty-one minutes....
‘The whole place bounced, and threw me off my feet. I had a glimpse of cracks opening in the roof and walls, then the light went out, and something fell on me....
‘I don’t need to go into details about the rest. Four of us in the control-chamber were left alive, and five in the level immediately above. None of us would have survived had the rock had earth-weight - nor should we have been able to shift it to clear a way to the emergency exit.
‘Even so, it took us four Earth-days to dig our way through the collapsed passages. All the station’s air was gone, of course, and we had to do it on dead men’s air- bottles, and emergency rations - as long as the rations lasted - and with only one two-man inflatable chamber between us to eat in.
‘The emergency exit was, of course, at some distance from the main entrance, but even so, a part of the roof of the terminal chamber had fallen in and wrecked one of the platforms there; fortunately the other two were scarcely damaged. The outer doors of the airlock were at the base of a cliff, and though the cliff itself had been a shield from the direct force of the explosion, a quantity of debris had fallen in front of the doors so that we had to blast them open. That gave us a big enough opening to sail the platforms through, and avoid any radio-active contamination - and, I think, by reason of the airlock’s position, any serious exposure to radiation ourselves.’
He looked round the group of officers.
‘It has been chivalrous of you, gentlemen, to take us in. Let me, in return, assure you that we have no intention of making ourselves a liability. On the contrary. There is a large food store in our station. If the cisterns have remained intact, there is water; also, there are air regeneration supplies. But we need drilling gear to get at these things. If, when my men are rested, you can let us have the necessary gear, we shall be able to add very considerably to your reserves here.’
He turned to the window, and looked at the shining segment of Earth.
‘ - And that may be as well, for I have a feeling that we may be going to need all the supplies we can collect.’
When the meeting was broken up, Troon took the General and his aide along to his own office. He let them seat themselves and light cigarettes before he said:
‘As you will understand, General, we are not equipped here to deal with prisoners of war. I do not know your men. Our station is vulnerable. What guarantees can you give against sabotage?’
‘Sabotage!’ exclaimed the General. ‘Why should there be sabotage? My men are all perfectly sane, I assure you. They are as well aware as I am that if anything should happen to this station it must be the end of all of us.’
‘But might there not be one - well, let us call him a selflessly patriotic man - who might consider it his duty to wreck this station, even at the cost of his own life?’
‘I think not. My command was staffed by picked, intelligent men. They are well aware that no one is going to win this war now. So that the object has become to survive it.’
‘But, General, are you not overlooking the fact that we, here, are still a fighting unit - the only one left in this theatre of war.’
The General’s eyebrows rose a little. He pondered Troon for a moment, and then smiled slightly.
‘I see. I have been a little puzzled. Your officers are still under that impression?’
Troon leaned forward to tap his cigarette ash into a tray.
‘Perhaps I don’t quite understand you, General.’
‘Don’t you, Commander? I am speaking of your value as a fighting unit.’
Their eyes met steadily for some seconds. Troon shrugged.
‘How high would you place our value as a fighting unit, General?’
General Budorieff shook his head gently.
‘Not very high, I am afraid, Commander,’ he said, and then, with a touch of apology in his manner, continued: ‘Before the last attack on our station you had dispatched nine medium missiles. I do not know whether you have fired any more since then, therefore the total striking power at your disposal may be either three medium missiles - or none at all.’
Troon turned, and looked out of the window towards the camouflaged missile-pits. His voice shook a little as he asked: ‘May I inquire how long you have known this General?’ Gently the General said:
‘About six months.’
Troon put his hand over his eyes. For a minute or two no one spoke. At length the General said:
‘Will you permit me to extend my sincere congratulations, Commander Troon? You must have played it magnificently.’
Troon, looking up, saw that he was genuine.
‘I shall have to tell them now,’ he said. ‘It’s going to hurt their pride. They thought of everything but that.’
‘It would, I think, be better to tell them now,’ agreed Budorieff, ‘but it is not necessary for them to know that we knew.’
?
??Thank you, General. That will at least do something to diminish the farcical element for them.’
‘Do not take it too hard, Commander. Bluff and counterbluff are, after all, an important part of strategy - and to have maintained such a bluff as that for almost twenty years is, if I may say so, masterly. I have been told that our people simply refused to believe our agents’ first reports on it.
‘Besides, what was our chief purpose here - yours, mine, and the Americans? Not to make war. We were a threat which, it was hoped, would help to prevent war - and one fancies that all of us here did do something to postpone it. Once fighting was allowed to start, it could make really very little difference whether our missiles were added to the general destruction or not. We have all known in our hearts that this war, if it should come, would not be a kind that anyone could win.
‘For my part, I was greatly relieved when I received this report on your armament. The thought that I might one day be required to destroy your quite defenceless station was not pleasant. And consider how it turns out. It is simply because your weapons were a bluff that your station still exists: and because it exists, that we still have a foothold on the moon. That is important.’
Troon looked up.
‘You think so, too, General? Not very many people do.’ ‘There are not, at any time, many people who have - what do you call it in English? - Divine discontent? Vision? Most men like to be settled among their familiar things, with a notice on the door: “Do Not Disturb.” They would still have that notice hanging outside their caves if it were not for the few discontented men. Therefore it is important that we are still here, important that we do not lose our gains. You understand?’
Troon nodded. He smiled faintly.
‘I understand, General. I understand very well. Why did I fight for a Moon Station? Why did I come here, and stay here? To hold on to it so that one day I could say to a younger man: “Here it is. We’ve got you this far. Now go ahead. The stars are before you ...” Yes, I understand. But what I have had to wonder lately is whether the time will ever come for me to say it....’