Talents, Incorporated by Murray Leinster (best sales books of all time TXT) 📕

It could be done in days. Instructions were already distributed and would have been studied and understood. The fleet would then go to Kandar—if it appeared that the Mekinese grand fleet would go there—and set up a dummy fleet of target-globes in war array. This would be a fleet, but not of fighting ships. It would be a fleet of metal-foil inflated balloons.

One actual fighting ship, he stipulated, would form part of this illusory space-navy. He volunteered the Horus for it. That ship would signal to the Mekinese when they arrived. It would make the king's proposal to surrender, on the Mekinese promise to spare the civilian population of Kandar. If the enemy admiral agreed to these terms and the king believed him, then the true Kandarian fleet could appear and yield to its overwhelmingly-powerful enemy. If the admiral arrogantly refused to pledge safety to Kandar's population, then the dummy formation might be destroyed, but the fleet would fight. Hopelessly and uselessly—though the new low-power drive worked well in action—but it would fight.

The First Admiral said stonily, "If I were in the position of the Mekinese admiral, and I agreed to terms of capitulation, and if it were then shown to me that the basis of the terms was a deceit, I would not feel bound by my promise. When the actual fleet appeared, I would blast it for questioning my honor."

Bors looked at him with hot eyes. The king said drearily, "No, Bors. We must act in good faith. We cannot question the Mekinese good faith as you propose, and then expect[143] them to believe in ours. The admiral is right. We can fight and bring destruction on our people, or we can place ourselves at the mercy of Mekin. There can be only one choice. We sacrifice ourselves, but we keep our honor."

"I deny," said Bors savagely, "that any man keeps his honor who enslaves his fellows, as you will do in surrendering. I resign my commission in your service, Majesty."

King Humphrey nodded wearily.

"Very well. You have served us admirably, Bors. I wish I thought you were right in this matter. I would rather follow your advice than my convictions. Your resignation is accepted."

An hour later, fuming, Bors paced back and forth across the floor of a cabin in the flagship. The Pretender of Tralee entered. The older man looked wryly amused.

"It was a most improper thing to do. You resigned your commission and then ordered the low-power fields built on all ships."

"To the contrary," said Bors, "I spread the news that I had resigned my commission because the low-power fields were not to be installed to give us a fighting chance!"

The Pretender sat down and regarded his nephew quizzically.

"But is it so important? To use tables of calculations instead of computers?"

"Yes," said Bors. "It is important. I should know. I've used the low-power fields in combat. Nobody else has."

The old man said without reproof, "The First Admiral is indignant. The fields were not ordered on the ground that they're an untested device and that at least once such a field blew out, leaving your ship, the Isis, so helpless that it had to be abandoned."

"True," agreed Bors. He made no defense. The attitude of the First Admiral would have been perfectly logical in ordinary times. Anything like the new intermediate, low-power overdrive field should have been proposed through channels, examined by a duly-appointed commission of officers, reported[144] on, the report evaluated, and then painstaking and lengthy tests made and the report on the tests evaluated. Then it should have been submitted to another commission of officers of higher rank, who would estimate the kind and amount of modification of standard equipment the new device required, its susceptibility to accident and/or obsolescence, the ease of repair, the cost of installation and the length of time in-port required to install it. Somewhere along the line there should also have been a report on the ease with which it could be integrated into other apparatus and standard operational procedures, and there should have been reports on its possible tactical value, the probable number of times it would be useful, the degree of its utility and whether the excessive discomfort of going into and out of overdrive at extremely short intervals would have an adverse effect on crew morale. Under normal circumstances a ship might have been equipped, for testing purposes, in six to ten years, and in ten years more all new ships might be equipped. But it would be well over a generation before its use was general.

The older man said, "Since your resignation's been accepted, you'll be put on the Sylva when it comes back. You won't be taken to Kandar with the fleet."

Bors's hands clenched.

"They'll say I resigned to stay out of the fight!"

"No," said his uncle mildly. "They'll say you resigned to avoid surrender. I'm being evicted with you. I'm to be dumped on the hospitality of your friend, Morgan, too. Humphrey is a very kindly man. Abominably so. But I am tired of being an exile. I'd really rather stay with the fleet. But he stands on his dignity to preserve our lives. I'm not sure what for, in a universe where such things as Mekin can happen."

"They happen," growled Bors, "because we value peace and quiet as much as the Mekinese do power, and much less than freedom. We compromise."

He paced up and down.

"Up to now," he said harshly, "every effort made against[145] Mekin has been defensive. Twenty-two worlds, in turn, have fallen because they only wanted to stop Mekin. It's time for some world to resolve very solidly to smash Mekin, to act with honest anger against a thing that should be hated. It's got to be done!"

"The time for such a resolution," said his uncle, gently, "went by long ago."

There was sudden voice from the compartment speaker.

"Co-o-o-ntact!"

There was the hissing sound of doors closing. The peculiarly-muffled silence of a closed compartment fell. The Pretender said quietly, "If this is the Mekinese fleet, everything is solved. But your friends of Talents, Incorporated will have to be wrong. They insist the grand fleet will not come here."

Bors rasped, "I wish I were in that control room! But at least we've got missiles they can't intercept!"

"Except that they won't be fired, they're a great improvement," the Pretender said mildly.

He sat at ease. Time passed. Presently the tiny compartment air-refresher hummed, bringing down the CO2 content of the air. It cut off. Bors paced up and down, up and down. He pictured what might be happening outside. It could be that the grand fleet of Mekin had appeared and now drove proudly toward Glamis. It could be that the fleet was offering surrender. There would be near-mutiny on many of its ships. There would be monumental frustration. Junior officers, in particular, would have examined the low-power overdrive tables, and would have studied longingly the reports of Bors's use of low-power overdrive against an enemy squadron off Meriden. They would yearn passionately to have their ships equipped with apparatus by which it could vanish from a place where it was a target to reappear elsewhere, unharmed, and make the enemy its target. Two fleets equipped with the new device might checkmate each other. But one fleet....

The speaker said curtly:

"Captain Bors, a single ship has broken out of overdrive.[146] It identifies itself as the ship Liberty, of Cela. It declares that it has come to place itself under your command."

Bors stared. He had forgotten about the two Cela-built ships which the Deccan rebels told him about—the first of which had gone on a trial run with a Mekinese crew and failed to return, and the second of which, with a Celan crew, had gone off to look for Bors and his marauders.

Somehow, it had found him. It seemed totally improbable. Bors instantly thought of Talents, Incorporated. The Talents on the ship had spread rebellion on worlds unthinkable distances apart. It was conceivable that in some way they'd brought this ship to Glamis.

"Very well," said Bors coldly, in the cabin to which he was confined. "I request to be put on board."

"I'll come with you," said his uncle. He smiled at Bors, who noted, but was not surprised at, the genuineness of the smile. "This is the ship you mentioned as hoping to emulate the Horus. I don't think you'll surrender it. But I've surrendered once and I don't like it. I'd rather not do it again."

Compartment-doors went back to normal, as combat-alert went off. Morgan appeared, agitated and upset.

"What's this?" he demanded. "What's happened?"

Bors told him curtly as much as he knew, all that he'd been told on Deccan. It was the only ship technically in actual rebellion against Mekin. It had heard rumors of Bors, and it wanted his leadership.

"But you can't go now!" insisted Morgan. "You've got to wait until the Sylva gets back! You have to have Talents, Incorporated information to act on! You need my Talents!"

"I'm going to get moving as fast as I can," said Bors. "I don't think we can wait. If the Liberty's what I think, and her crew what I believe, they'll crave action."

There was a space-boat at the flagship's lock. Bors and his uncle entered. Those already in the boat were young men in the nondescript clothing of ship-workers. They grinned proudly at Bors when he took his seat.

"I don't know whether you know, sir," said the young man[147] at the space-boat's controls, "but we heard about your revolt, sir, and we were about at the limit so we—"

"I stopped at Deccan," Bors said briefly. "They told me about you. Do you want action against Mekin?"

"Yes, sir!" It was a chorus.

"You'll get it," said Bors. "I'll try you out on a concentration of Mekin ships that should be turning up at Kandar. How are you equipped for repairs and changes?"

"We left Cela for a test trip, sir," said the young man at the controls. There were grins behind him. He chuckled. "Naturally we had materials to repair anything that went wrong on a trial run!"

"I've got some new settings for missiles," said Bors, "which make them hard to dodge. And we'll want to set up a special overdrive control, which makes it easy to dodge Mekinese ones. We can attend to it on the way to Kandar. How many aboard?"

He asked other curt questions. They answered. What Bors asked was what a commanding officer would need to know about a new ship, and his new followers realized it. They had been exultant and triumphant when he entered the space-boat. In the brief time needed to get to the Liberty they became ardently confident.

His reception was undisciplined but enthusiastic. He made a hurried inspection. The Liberty had started out with a skeleton crew of shipyard workers and no stores or arms. The ranks were now filled with volunteers from Deccan and elsewhere, and its storage-rooms fairly bulged with foodstuffs. Bors, however, really relaxed only once. That was when he saw the filled racks of missiles. On Deccan they'd been lavish in their gifts to the rebel space-ship.

Bors went into the control room, glanced about, and spoke crisply into the all-speaker microphone.

"All hands attention! Bors speaking. A concentration of Mekinese ships is expected at Kandar. We shall head for that planet immediately. On the way I shall arrange for some changes in the settings of the missiles we have on board. We[148] will fix and distribute aiming-tables for their use. We will stop twice on the way for target practice. Much more than your lives or mine depends on how well you do your work. We'll also modify the overdrive to make this ship able to do everything my other ships did—and more. You will work much harder on the way to Kandar than you ever worked before, but we have to accomplish more than usual. That's all."

He stood by while the ship was aimed for Kandar. The young astrogator said enthusiastically, "Prepare for overdrive. Five, four, three—"

A voice out of a speaker:

"Calling Liberty! Calling Liberty! Morgan calling Liberty!"

"Hold it," said Bors.

He answered the call. Morgan's voice, in a high state of agitation, "Bors! The Sylva's just back! Just broke out! The grand fleet will get to Kandar in five days, four hours, twenty minutes! My Talent on the Sylva is sure of it. It's Talents, Incorporated information!"

"We haven't any time to spare, then," said Bors.

"Bors!" panted Morgan's voice. "There were three ships of our fleet hanging about, on watch for Mekinese. They expected one. Twelve came. The observation-ships attacked. They got eleven of the twelve. The last one went into overdrive and got away! Bors! Do you see what that means?"

"It means," said Bors coldly, "that Mekin won't be accepting surrenders this week. Destroying the first division was bad enough. I got one off Meriden. Now that a third squadron's wiped out, Mekin will insist on somebody getting punished—and plenty! All right! We're leaving for Kandar now."

He nodded to the young man at