often a noisy business, it was kept well away from the city.
We were passing over a column of transports carrying parts of spacecraft, the bulk of main engines, including toroid sections of what looked like a ramscoop collector-head, being the most obvious. But on this road it was an everyday sight.
'What's odd about that?' I asked.
'The direction they're traveling,' said Dimity. 'They're taking those engines to Glenrothes Field, not from it.'
'I heard there had been a special meeting called last night,' said Dimity. 'Would it have been about what I think it was about?'
'I can't say.' Again, that was all the answer needed.
'I told you about the Sea Statue.'
'Oh, yes.' We had talked for a long time after returning from the monastery. She had told me more about the near-catastrophic attempt to open the ancient stasis field discovered on Earth many years ago. I had had a vague idea: What had been learned as a result of 'opening' the Sea Statue was knowledge similar to the knowledge in the Dark Ages that the Earth was spherical: A lot of educated people knew about it but didn't talk about it much. 'What's the connection?'
'It appears likely that the ancients seeded this part of the galaxy at least with common life-forms.'
Yes.' We had both studied what was known about the two-billion-year-departed ancient races and their omnicidal war, which wasn't much.
'That's probably why our plants and animals can grow on Wunderland, and why we can eat a lot of Wunderland plants and animals.'
'Yes.' I was beginning to see where she was leading, and didn't like it.
'Tigripards eat our sheep. Beam's beast bites poison us. Advokats eat our garbage. Zeitungers eat our garbage and affect our moods as well… Something that the old SETI people could never have foreseen, but we should: Beings from at least two different star systems have biochemistry alike enough for them to be able to eat each other.'
'So it seems.'
'It puts some of my… mathematical speculations… in a rather different light, doesn't it?' I had thought that before. But the full implications of what she was saying took a moment to hit me. Then it was like a physical blow. 'We've got to get you out!'
'That may not be so easy. Where am I going to go?'
'We've got to get you back to Earth.'
'How?'
There seemed no answer to that. I was beyond regretting that I had basically confirmed to her what the previous night's meeting had been about.
Chapter 5
That fatal drollery called a representative government
Despite the seriousness of what I had found, several days passed before I got a chance to see Grotius. I filed a report with the police but received a mere mechanical acknowledgment. Grotius, when I did see him at a meeting of the committee, was abstracted and uninterested. He looked weary and surprisingly aged. My report of evidence of multiple homicides produced little more than a shake of the head. 'I've no officers to spare now,' he said. 'Most of them are busy trying to find out how to reinvent the wheel. Or they're at the spaceport, working on the meteor guardships.
'And I need them in the streets, as well as everywhere else. One thing we've learned already is that a bunch of fifty people can't keep a secret. There have been rumors in the streets for days. It'll be on the newscast in a few hours. We can't stop that… We could, actually, but it would do more harm than good. My cops are so busy that I'm expecting crime too. There are almost no police on patrol. We've got a few extra strakkakers in store and I'm issuing them. At least that will look threatening if there's an emergency. '
'How many strakkakers have we got?' That was Talbot.
'I don't know, exactly. We had the one batch made for police needs, plus replacements and spares.'
When?'
'Years ago. The factory's closed down now.'
'Don't you think we should open it again? Fast!'
'What for?' A pause, then, 'Oh, I see.'
'There are police message-lasers, too. We can dial them up to weapons.'
'Really?'
'Of course. It was always in the design.'
'Yes. I see.'
'I should clear it with the council.'
'Later.'
Grotius looked at him, then opened a hand-phone and began to speak fast. The Defense Committee had taken an executive action.
'I've been at the library all day,' said Talbot. 'Reading every book on war I could find. There aren't many.'
'ARM went through our library before we left Earth. There are some records of old wars in a general way, even some copies of ancient visual films. There are a few books. But so little that is actually of practical use. They didn't want us building armies.'
'No.'
'I found one on a Japanese attack on some American sea-ships at Hawaii, Day of Infamy. The American ships had guns to defend themselves against flying engines, covered by awnings. An officer on one began untying the lines that held the awnings in place as the flying engines attacked. A cook ran up and cut them with a knife. We have to think differently.
'Grotius, we don't want one factory making strakkakers. We want every factory we can get on line. We want factories making factories making strakkakers. Now!'
'No! Strakkakers aren't the be-all and end-all. They are police weapons of last resort. We may want battlefield weapons, space weapons! Tie up too much of our industrial production in one thing and you lose in other ways.'
'What are battlefield weapons? How are they different from other weapons?'
'I don't know. But I gather they used to have them, on Earth. I've found references to something called a main battle tank.'
'We'd better ask the meteor people. They use big lasers, don't they? And bomb-missiles.'
Are you seriously suggesting… '
'Yes. Of course I am! There are old launching lasers on Tiamat and down at Equatoria. They're got to be brought back on line.'
Other voices raised.
'Think of the cost! Runaway inflation! We've only got one economy to play with on this planet!'
We don't want factories for strakkakers! We want factories for plutonium!'
'Whatever for? Plutonium's dangerous… Oh, I see.'
'It's already happening. The Meteor Guard… '
'Shut up, you fool!'
'What trained fighters have we got? Only a handful of cops. They should be training instructors to train recruits!'
