The Lost Perception (18 page)

And now he zylphed the edge of Chandeen—just below the visual horizon. There was a magnificence, an overwhelming splendor, a glial-numbing hyperbrilliance about the wellspring of rault that forced him to turn his direct perception aside.

“Your suppressor’s off, isn’t it?” Helen asked.

But, preoccupied with the beauty and supreme order of the rault-limned cosmos, he was hardly aware she had spoken.

She drew closer. “We’ve never zylphed each other, have we?”

And suddenly the stygumness which enveloped her shrank in upon itself as she, too, turned off her suppressor.

His glial attention thus drawn back to his immediate surroundings, he zylphed the girl and realized at once that she was, in turn, zylphing his experience with Karen aboard Vega Jumpoff. It was all there in his
conscious
thoughts now, because he wanted her to know. Yet he couldn’t hide his embarrassment.

But there had been no need for queasiness. Not only was she altogether tolerant, but she also understood that he would never have had the opportunity to escape VJO if he had not earned Karen’s and Radcliff’s confidence.

He gripped her shoulder and her hair brushed across his hand and he sensed each of the thousands of silken strands as…

Abruptly dismayed, he zylphed skyward. There was a hopper coming in low over the mountain crest to the east.

And suddenly, he realized the pilot had zylphed him and Helen long before they had become aware of him.

Instantly Gregson turned up his suppressor to full output But it was too late. The secrecy of the base had been compromised.

He caught the girl’s hand and they raced toward the shack.

The hopper now was a roaring rumble in the sky as it headed directly for the glade.

Then the darkness of the forest was cleaved by the lashing of heavy laser beams and Gregson imagined the craft had already unleashed its assault But eventually he saw that the attacking beams had, rather, been directed from surface to air.

The drone of the hopper’s impellers sputtered, then died, releasing the night back to ebon stillness. A moment later there was a jarring crash and the forest was bathed in a flickering, crimson glow.

Even as they reached the base site, scores of persons were running about in the darkness. Just then, however, floodlights came on, harshly illuminating the shacks and hoppers and shuttle craft.

“Greg!” Wellford called out. “Over here!”

The Englishman was poised on the ramp of the soot-black shuttle, signaling crews aboard the other two space craft.

Helen hung back while Gregson approached. “I’m afraid all this is my fault,” he began.

“You see…”

“Doesn’t matter now. Perhaps it’s just as well. By waiting any longer we might have been denied the chance of pulling the string.”

He cupped his hands and shouted, “Everybody scatter! There may be a follow-up attack!”

Gregson turned to join the exodus.

But Wellford called down, “No, Greg! In here with me! You’re needed on this mission!”

Halfway to rendezvous with Vega Jumpoff, Well ford made a final trajectory correction and checked the shuttle’s rault suppressor to insure maximum output.

In the bucket seat beside him, Gregson said, “We don’t need that thing now. We’re within the station’s stygumness field.”

“But should they decide to turn off their suppressor, we must be certain that they’ll zylph only our other two shuttles.”

“You’re using them to divert VJO’s attention?”

“Exactly. While we go about more important tasks. Tend the shop a minute, will you? I’ve something to see to up forward.”

Wellford squirmed out of the seat’s harness and propelled himself into the cargo compartment.

Energizing the telescreen, Gregson directed its sensors rearward. But nowhere could he detect any Security Bureau craft. Eventually he understood why: With Shuttle Traffic Control out of commission, all docking would have to be done manually, visually. Thus, operations would be suspended while Vega Jumpoff was in Earth’s umbra. Had the Englishman planned it that way? Had he purposely destroyed Traffic Control so that there would be no ships in the vicinity at this time?

Wellford returned and noticed the energized screen. “I shouldn’t imagine you’ll find anything out here at the moment. We’ve arranged for the bureau to be much too busy Earthside.”

“Doing what?”

Wellford glanced at his watch. “As of fifteen minutes ago, our ground forces began a massive assault on Space Division Command Central. The ultimate objective, of course, is to seize the base so that we may have use of it later. But if our attack merely manages to spread confusion and prevent shuttle craft operation for several hours, we shall be more than satisfied.”

Through the forward port, Vega Jumpoff was still merely a point of light. Floating almost unnoticed against its stellar background, it hadn’t yet entered Earth’s shadow.

Wellford settled back in his seat and swung the telescreen on its axis so they could both look at it. He returned it until finally the other two shuttle craft swam like silvery slivers on the face of the tube. Sunlight glinted on their hulls as they arrogantly rejected concealment in Earth’s umbra for an apparently fanatic attack on the station.

“Wouldn’t you suppose,” the Englishman asked, “that by now the satellite’s radar and teleserisors have picked up our diversionary force?”

“I don’t see how they could miss.”

Wellford shoved the telescreen aside. “At this point things become a bit ticklish. Our success hinges entirely upon our other two shuttles. They must attract total attention and create enough commotion so that every eye, every sensor aboard the station will be upon them rather than us.”

“Seems to me you have this ship pretty well insured against visual and radar detection.”

“Only during free fall. When we decelerate, we’re going to make a somewhat garish splash with our forward tubes, you know.”

Gregson hadn’t thought of that. But he reminded, “You got away with it last night when you made sketches of the station’s suppressor.”

“Indeed we did. And without employing diversionary tactics. But we can’t hope for another serving of such good fortune. That’s why we arranged the frontal attack concurrent with this mission.”

Ten minutes from the station, Wellford engaged the servo-mechanism that swung their seats a hundred and eighty degrees around. Then he injected fuel into the forward tubes and the crushing force of deceleration at maximum G-load subsequently dropped a veil of oblivion over their senses.

Timed circuits, however, cut off the fuel flow after a given interval and Gregson regained consciousness first. He turned the seats forward again and Vega Jumpoff, now eclipsed by Earth, drifted into the port—a huge, shadowy ring fitfully lighted by the laser beams that sliced out into the darkness from its peripheral gun stations.

Wellford came around and muttered: “That was somewhat rough, wasn’t it?” But it was obvious he had referred to the minute-long glare of their forward tubes, rather than to the physical ordeal of compressed deceleration.

He hunched forward to stare at the satellite. “At least there are no laser gunners cutting loose in this direction, so I suppose we may assume we’ve thus far gone undetected.”

Gregson could see the diversionary force now—one ship on either side of the wheel and within its plane of rotation. Forward and after tubes aboard both shuttles were firing frantically as they maneuvered to evade the whiplash of heavy laser artillery. But Gregson found it significant that the shuttles’ beams were invariably wide of their mark. Apparently it was not intended that the satellite should receive any further damage.

Vega Jumpoff expanded perceptibly in the view port as Wellford allowed his craft, with its residue of momentum after deceleration, to drift in upon the station. Gingerly, he made a course correction, then another. Forward tubes belched once more, briefly, and Gregson strained against his harness. Finally they were aimed directly at the irismatic air lock in the center of the station’s nave.

Wellford grinned. “We now find ourselves down to the meat of the chestnut. After we picked you up in Paris, I zylphed an interesting experience you had had with Madame Carnot. Remember?”

Gregson shook his head.

“She played a despicable little trick on you. When you weren’t expecting it, she turned up her personal rault caster to full output. What was it like?”

“Like a hundred flash bulbs going off in my brain.”

In the corner of his vision Gregson watched one of the attacking ships take a pencil-thin laser beam broadside. It was sliced in half. The other, he noticed, began drawing farther away, while it fired even more furiously.

“Precisely,” Wellford said in response to the other s simile. “Since then we’ve learned from the Valorians that an intense concentration of hyperradiance can be as injurious to the glial cells as a brilliant arc light is to the eyes—immensely more so, as a matter of fact.”

When Gregson said nothing, the Englishman went on: “Such an exposure can completely and permanently destroy glial receptivity, to begin with. But we mustn’t forget that the glial structure is everywhere within the brain, enveloping each neuron. Thus the damage is not confined to rault receptors alone. Injury spills over and stifles every habit pattern, every acquired function.”

Gregson tried to reason ahead, but failed. “So?”

“So what do you suppose would happen if a rault suppressor, so powerful that it’s generating a sphere of stygumness
thousands of miles
in diameter, should abruptly start putting out an equivalent amount of
hyperradiance
instead?”

Gregson instantly grasped the significance of the operation. “And with all the hierarchy of the conspiracy within a half mile of dead center!”

“You have the picture. The trick will be tapping into their suppressor and installing a parallel circuit that will transform it into a rault caster. Actually, we shall have only to hook in the crystal modulators.”

“And we’re going to make the modifications now?”

Wellford nodded. “The parallel circuit will be activated by a time switch. We shall allow ourselves forty-five minutes to clear out before the generator shifts from one function to another. It’ll be a very briefly sustained raultburst—just thirty seconds. Then the suppressor will come on again. Afterward it will be interesting to see what conditions prevail aboard Vega Jumpoff.”

The Englishman handed him a schematic diagram. “This shows what we must do.”

Another minor burst of propulsion brought them exactly in line with the dock. The shuttle’s nose engaged an actuating stud. Irismatic leaves folded open around the hull’s forward section as the ship inched into the hub’s air lock. Magnetic fasteners grabbed hold and the craft jarred lightly as it shuddered into coupled position.

They propelled themselves out through the cargo compartment and then into the interior of the hub, among the confusing framework of girders that glowed in the pale light of the super rault suppressor’s tubes.

“Here.” Wellford handed over a laser pistol. “Narrow-beam anything that moves—before it has the chance to sound an alarm.”

Gregson anchored himself to a structural member and his alert stare leaped from one peripheral corridor entrance to the next, checking and rechecking each of the eight access hatchways.

Meanwhile, Wellford had reentered the shuttle. After a moment he drifted out again, the first of the compact crystal-modulator components clamped under his arm. He seized one of the guy wires and drew himself along toward the huge suppressor.

As he pulled away from the air lock, twin insulated leads, connecting the first component to the second, stretched taut and drew the latter from the shuttle’s hold. After a moment he was towing an apparently endless chain of small, metal boxes, each equipped with a suction cup, toward the center of the nave compartment.

When he reached the rault suppressor, he selected the nearest radial I-beam and shoved the first of the crystal components into the girder’s recess, attaching it by its cup.

Now he hauled the chain swiftly out of the shuttle, forcing each box into position along the beam as he progressed outward. When the last of the train was in place he went back to the ship and began with a second, then a third series of components.

He made a final trip into the shuttle and returned with a pouch of electrician’s tools, a small switch box that trailed six leads, and the schematic of the suppressor. As he headed for the hulking generator, he motioned Gregson over.

“If you’ll take the switch,” he suggested, “I shall start hooking things up.”

Gregson, attaching himself to a guy wire by the crook of an elbow, managed to hold on to both the switch and his laser pistol. Alternately, he watched Wellford and the eight hatchways.

“There!” the Englishman said, relieved. “We’ve located the two leads we have to shunt.”

He pointed them out between a pair of the suppressor’s larger louvered boxes.

Then he skinned the insulation in two places on each cable. “By making our connections first,” he explained, “suppressor current will continue flowing through our timer when we interrupt the circuit.”

He secured four of the switch box leads to the exposed cables. Then he began attaching the crystal-modulator chains to the remaining two wires dangling from the timer.

When he had finished, he fished his snips out of the kit. “Now we have only to cut the cables and set our timer.”

But just then Gregson was blinded by a crimson laser beam that speared into the compartment. He ducked instinctively and threshed about, firing as he turned.

An International Guardsman was holding on to a stanchion in the nearest hatchway.

Gregson managed to narrow-beam the man before he could get off a second shot. Then he shoved himself toward the peripheral corridor, nudging the lifeless guard out of his way.

He made a quick circuit of the passageway, checking all the elevator indicators. But none of the cages was in motion.

Back in the hub compartment, however, he found Wellford drifting about in a semiconscious condition. Part of his scalp had apparently been beamed off.

Gregson tore strips off his shut and fashioned a makeshift compress to stem the flow of blood.

“I… I’ve set the switch,” the Englishman muttered. “Cut the cables and let’s get out of here.”

Gregson left him there and went back to the suppressor. But the snips were nowhere to be found.

He readjusted his laser pistol and sliced through the twin leads with a slender beam.

Then he hauled Wellford back into the shuttle.

After an initial burst of reverse propulsion, he allowed the craft to drift perhaps a hundred yards. Then he gave the forward tubes a ten-second injection of fuel.

“Enough,” Wellford cautioned, his features twisted with pain. “If they discover us, they’ll inspect the hub compartment.”

Ever so slowly, it seemed, they drifted away from Vega Jumpoff. The outer doughnut’s laser batteries had quit firing and the second diversionary shuttle craft was nowhere in sight.

Some twenty minutes later, Wellford suggested, “Very well, let’s turn about. At top acceleration we should be a few thousand miles away before raultburst.”

While Gregson brought the ship’s nose around, the other added, “Let’s make certain all our rault suppressors are on full power. It might blunt some of the metabrilliance of that flash.”

It was somewhat less than—fifteen minutes later when Gregson jolted in the seat as his glial receptors were swamped by the most intense assault of hyperradiance he had ever zylphed.

The overwhelming sensation was a searing physical pain, as severe as any of the Screamie assaults he had suffered during isolation. He had tried desperately to lock out the raultburst by doggedly remaining nonsensitive. But so overpowering was the scorching blast that his endocrinal defenses were instantly shattered. And when the flaring torture finally ended he was exhausted and limp in his harness as he watched Wellford regain consciousness.

After a moment, the Englishman mumbled, “Unmitigated hell, wasn’t it? Let’s decelerate and start back for Vega Jumpoff.”

He paused, then added, “Incidentally, we were relatively close to that raultburst too, you know.
Our
glial receptors also took somewhat of a searing. I shouldn’t expect to be able to zylph anything at all for a year or two, at least”

Back at the station they found the Space Division director in Command Central.

General Forrester was crawling across the deck, leaving a trail of drool in his wake. It was not an unusual sight aboard VJO. Some of the personnel lay on their backs, kicking and murmuring. Others slept with their arms and legs drawn up close to their bodies.

Wellford struck out for Earth Communications. “If our ground assault paid maximum dividends too, our shuttles will start bringing help shortly so that we may roll up our sleeves and begin cleaning up this mess.”

Along the ring’s peripheral corridor they found a pair of electric carts and mounted them, continuing on their way.