"Jones, Nackolai and Stanziale are detailed to the Dr. Chi mission.
Nilson, Bernard and Cossairt are detailed to get the Indian. The rest of you will take over where you are posted, and secure all personnel to their quarters.
"Clark. Drop your cover and take over control of the bridge.
"I expect to have Hot Rod operational within five minutes. And Clark.
Instruct the computer to discontinue precession operations that have been initiated.
"Take whatever measures are necessary to carry out these instructions.
"This is no longer an undercover operation, gentlemen. Security is taking control.
"This is war."
As the last sentence came over the loud-speaker, Mike sprang to the intercom. He quickly keyed the direct line to engineering.
"Ishie," he said, "I gather you"re safe?"
"Yes, Mike. Situation here very secure. I heard announcement of conflict. You need not tell me to put the Cow under our control. It is done. She will obey no one else until further instructed from here. I didn"t instruct her to obey only instructions by me, Mike, because we are all expendable now."
As he finished speaking, the intercom went dead. Obviously the communications officer, as his first act, had turned off the central intercom power system under his control.
On the bridge, from the time that Mike and Ishie had left, the picture of what was occurring had grown more ominous by the minute.
More than the vague, official messages had been flooding in from Earth.
At the captain"s command, the communications officer had opened up a channel for news broadcasts, and put it on the speaker so they could all hear.
The news round-ups indicated that various elements and factions in the world below had had their say--each more vicious than the last.
From an original rumor of a minor s.p.a.ce disaster, it had become a tremendous accident that had wiped out Thule Base and left a smoking ruins of Greenland.
From this it had become--possible sabotage.
From this, a direct, unprovoked attack by the scientists on Earth itself.
Suddenly statesmen were standing forth in the U.N., condemning the actions of country after country that had made possible the great wheel; and just as suddenly, word had been announced:
Earth would be protected. The U.N. would act.
The U.N., it suddenly was found, controlled the majority of all weapons on Earth; controlled the majority of all armies, navies, and all stockpiles of ships and planes and ammunition that it had so boastingly told everyone that it had sc.r.a.pped.
The honeyed phrases of a few years before that there would always be peace on Earth, and that the U.N. had taken the bite out of war, changed; and the individual nations were now forgotten.
Now the U.N. itself was the military power; and now it would be U.N.
telling others what to do.
Mobilization would be declared. A war footing for the economy.
Everyone must fight back against the insane scientists above with their inhuman weapon.
With appalling swiftness, where apparently nothing had been before, a military force stepped forth in full armor to grind man"s hopes for freedom under an iron heel while waving its fist at the stars.
At first there had been voices crying out against this monstrous action, this unbelievable birth, in the U.N. a.s.sembly. But the voices had become fewer and fewer, weaker and weaker, and in a matter of hours had been drowned out.
Amazingly, even now, there were one or two who stood up in an attempt to stem the tide; but they were ignored, and a ninety-eight per cent favorable vote was cast.
The U.N. Security Forces had been granted dictatorial powers.
For the "duration of the emergency."
The die was cast, and the yoke fitted, ever so snugly but firmly, across mankind"s back, while he cheered the fitting.
Captain Nails Andersen sat stunned at his console.
The communications officer sat back, paying little attention to the board before him, a light smirk on his face.
But the smirk dropped from his face suddenly. Rising over the background chatter of the radio announcements from U.N. Headquarters, came loudly over the ship general intercom the voice of Major Steve Elbertson, counting down through the list of Security personnel.
He, too, sat stunned until, as the voice ended "This is war," he came to, stood up needle gun in hand, pointed at the captain.
"I don"t know how your slipstick boys cracked our code and picked that message up," he said, "and I don"t really care. As you heard, the major has ordered me to take command of the bridge. I hereby do so."
Coming through the bulkhead were two more Security men, each with a needle gun. His gun unwaveringly pointed at the captain, Com Officer Clark reached down and flipped the red switch that turned off the power to all of the ship intercoms.
On board Hot Rod, the Security crew was working against an accelerated time-schedule now. The aiming controls of Hot Rod"s big mirror were infinitely precise--and correspondingly slow. As soon as the storage power supply had been wired into the big weapon--a precise operation, requiring both skill and time--the factors had been keyed in that would bring the mirror in an arc, turning it to bear precisely on that area of s.p.a.ce through which the pa.s.senger spokes of the wheel turned; but the motion of the mirror was infinitesimally slow.
As the crew of Hot Rod strove to get it into position to fire; and the computer on the wheel strove to precess the wheel to a position where firing would be fatal to the firer, it became a race between giant snails.
But already the rim of the big wheel had inched slightly ahead in the race; and the main part of the hub was disappearing behind it. In spite of Elbertson"s orders, the big wheel continued to turn its rim directly towards the giant balloon with its bulbous nose.
It was a curious sensation, seeing the big wheel from this angle.
Much the same sensation as that of an ant, staring at the oncoming wheel of a huge truck.
In the machine shop, Mike was rummaging around in one of the tool lockers. "Any sort of a small telescope," he muttered, almost to himself. Then "Paul, is there a theodolite or anything like that left lying around in here?"
"Yes," said Paul, moving off to a cabinet in another part of the room.
"We needed them when we were putting the wheel together."
"O.K." Mike turned back to the laser milling machine. "Now can we take the focusing lens off of this, and rig something to give me a focus at about 4.5 miles? Or would it need focusing at all? Shooting at that distance?"
"Depends on what you shoot, Mike. The unfocused beam can make a black surface very hot very quick. But from a mirror surface, it would just bounce, unless it"s carefully focused."