Chapter 21

THE BATTLE OF NEW RUSSIA

Bernice sat on the rostrum, at Maynard's right, when he called the Board to order and

said, aloud for the record:

"Mrs. Jones, who is by far the most sensitive perceiver known to us, has made an

intensive psionic study of New Russia. Her report is already on tape; but, since you are

all psiontists, I have asked her to give you, mind to mind, everything she found out, so

that you will be able to perceive and to fee! the many sidebands, connotations, and

implications that can not possibly be put into words. Mrs. Jones, will you take the floor,

please?"

Bernice took Maynard's place in the speaker's box and an almost absolute silence fell; a

silence that, even at the speed of thought, lasted almost half an hour. When she sat

down, all two-hundred-odd members of the Board breathed gustily and stared at each

other with emotions and expressions that simply cannot be described. Maynard resumed

his place at the speaker's stand and spoke into the microphone:

"You see that Communism has not changed one iota in over two hundred years. It is a

rule based solely upon violence and fear. It is a rule of terror, of spies, of informers, of

secret police of the lowest, most brutal type -police who use by choice the most callous,

the most hideous techniques of all the older regimes of the iron heel; those of the

GESTAPO and the OGPU and the SLRESK and the KARSH. There are no civil liberties,

no rights of any kind except those based upon the power to kill. There have been, there

are now, and there will continue to be assassinations and purges; slaughter at the whim

of one power-mad man or of a group of such men.

"It is my considered opinion that Communism should have been wiped out before atomic

energy was developed. It has never been willing to cooperate with any decent civilization.

It was forced into a kind of coexistence by the certain knowledge that if it did not at least

pretend to accept coexistence it itself would be destroyed in the world-wide holocaust

that would inevitably follow any attempt at conquest by armed force. Its basic drive, its

prime tenet, however, has not changed. Not in any particular. Its insane lust for

dominance will never be satisfied until all civilization lies prostrate under its spike-studded

clubs. Before colonization, it devoted its every effort, fair and foul, to the mastery of the

entire Earth; since the first planet was colonized its innate compulsion was, now is, and

will continue to be the complete mastery of civilization everywhere; where ever in total

space our civilization may go.

"It is my carefully-considered personal opinion that this cancer in the body politic, if it is

not extirpated now, will soon become inoperable. At the time when we acquired the fleet

that had been englobing Earth, the Communists had built on their hidden planet a warfleet

almost as large as our own. They were and still are building more superdreadnoughts.

They intended to attack us as soon as their superiority was sufficient to warrant an

all-out bid for supremacy. It was only the acquirement of that fleet that gave us

overwhelming superiority as of now. How long will our superiority last? They are building

much faster than we can without converting to a war footing. Shall we do that, and try to

perpetuate the cold war? An attempt that will certainly fail sooner or later? The only

question, as I see it, is: Do we want war now, while by luck we have the means to win;

or later, when we very probably will not have?

"I use the words 'very probably will not' advisedly; with reference to our

ultra-high-acceleration screened battle torpedoes, against which we ourselves have no

defense except a planet-based repulsor. It is practically certain that the Russians do not

have them in production yet. Ilyowicz knew about there and passed the information

along; but he himself was neither an engineer nor a scientist, and-fortunately-we kept the

whole TIMPS project top secret and under psionic guard. The Russians will develop them

in time, certainly; possibly in months, or even weeks. If we wait until they have them in

production we may still be able to vin, but I need not tell you at what appalling cost in

lives.

"Mrs. Jones showed you the large portions of certain munitions plants, and entire areas

that are probably munitions plants, that are hidden under psionic shields. The meaning of

that is clear.

"I now ask the supremely vital question: Ladies and gentlemen of the Board- Shall we

fight now or not?" There was some discussion, but not very much. Every person in the

hall knew the whole story with psionic certainty, and the spirit of Patrick Henry still lived.

The vote was unanimous for immediate war.

The Galaxians' Grand Fleet, six hundred thirty five superdreadnoughts strong, was in

subspace on its way to New Russia. Fleet Admiral Dann, in his flagship Terra, felt happy,

proud, and confident. Since bombs could not be teleported though competent psionic

screening and the Communists had plenty of competent psiontists, the battle would have

to be fought along conventional lines. However, that was all right. He now had

overwhelming superiority. He also had the TIMPS; which, he was sure, would win the

battle. The worst that could happen was that he couldn't get them all. A lot of them would

get away by immerging . . . unless that thing Deston and Adams were working on would .

. . maybe . . .

That was the only thing about this whole operation he didn't like. He called Adams,

aboard the Explorer; which subspace-going laboratory, while traveling in the same

direction as the fleet and at the same velocity, was in no sense any part of it.

"Doc," Dann thought at him, "I'm going to try again. I know there are only fourteen of you

aboard this time, but God damn it, there's only one Andrew Adams. You're the most

important man alive, and nobody in his right mind would call the Big Six expendable,

either. The rest of us are-that's our business-but if you get killed there'll be hell to pay

and no pitch hot. I'd probably have to take cyanide or face a firing squad. So won't you

please, please go back home and stay there?"

"We will not," Adams replied. "Your solicitude for us does not impress me, and that for

yourself is absurd it is on record that we are working independently of your fleet and

against your wishes. We are conducting a scientific investigation, which may or may not

result in the destruction of one or more Communist warships. It may or may not result in

the loss of one or all of our lives, although we believe that we have a rather high

probability of safety. In any case, the data we obtain will be preserved, which is all that

is important. Whatever else happens is immaterial-the results of this investigation, young

man, are necessary to science," and Adams cut the telepathic line.

Dann sat back appalled. He had heard of selfless devotion to a cause, but this . . . and

not only himself, but also his wife and the other twelve top psiontists of all known space.

. .

But Admiral Dann had very little time to ponder abstractions. Grand Fleet emerged. Not

in tight formation, of course-really fine control was to come later but most of the

subspacers came out within a few thouand miles of where they had intended to. And

every Galaxian ship, as it emerged, hurled death and destruction. The TIMPS were

launched first, of course; they were the Sunday punch. Thousands of killers erupted, too,

and hundreds of ordinary torps. They were not expected to do much damage-and they

didn't-but they would fill the ether full of fireworks and they might keep the Communist

needlemen busy enough with their lasers so that some of them might get through. At

least, they'd give the enemy sharpshooters something to do. Then, long before the end

of the fifteen seconds it would take for the first TIMPS and killers to reach their targets,

the big Galaxian battlewagons put out their every course of battle screen, torched up

their every battle beam, and tore in at full drive to englobe the Commie ships and blast

them out of the ether.

All space became filled with the unbearable brilliance, the incomprehensible energies of

hundred-megaton warheads exploding as thick as sparks from a forging ram, and eight

of the Communist ships of war were volatilized at that first blast.

But fifteen seconds at battle tension is a long time; plenty of time for a smart

commander-especially one who has been warned that the enemy may have a weapon

against which he has no defense-to push his IMMERSE button and flit for the protection

of an umbrella. Therefore, five seconds after the first Commie ship had been blown to

atoms-twenty seconds after the battle's beginning and long before Grand Fleet could

begin englobing tactics against individual Communist ships-the Battle of New Russia was

over. Not one Communist warship remained in space.

There was some defensive action, of course. The Commies had launched a lot of

long-range stuff, too, but it was all ordinary stuff; stuff that could be handled. Defensive

and repulsor screens flared white and beamers and lasermen were very busy men

indeed for a few minutes, but not one Galaxian vessel was very badly damaged or had to

immerse.

Admiral Dann had followed the last few Commies into subspace with his sense of

perception, but they had simply disappeared-with no sign of damage or of violence.

Okay: if they re-emerged to continue the battle that would be all right; if they never

re-emerged that would be still better. Wherefore, after ordering full detection alert, both

up and down, he relaxed-still strapped down at his con-board-and waited to hear from

Maynard.

It is exceedingly difficult, as all psiontists know, to work the Fourth Nume of Total Reality.

What, then, of the Fifth? It had been known, theoretically, for many years, as the realm

of two abysmally fundamental and irreconcilably opposed aspects of that Reality.

First, there was DISCONTINUITY. This was the aspect of complete unpredictability. The

infinity-to-the-infinitieth power of all possible and impossible events could and would

happen; simultaneously, in regular or in irregular sequence, or at complete random, or in

all of these ways at once; completely without justification, reason, or cause.

Second, there was something that was called, for lack of a better term, CREATIVITY.

This was the hyper volume locus of the basic male principle, although sex as such was

only an infinitesimal part of it. It was the aspect or phase-Quality? Ability? Primal Urge?

Power? Force?-backing and binding all being and all doing. It was the-the Will? The

Drive? The Compulsion?to be, to do, to develop, to grow-TO CREATE. It was the

enormous "natural tendency" toward the continuing existence of a universe of order and

of law. Call it what you please, it is that without which-or without the application of which:

language is so helpless in psionicsl -this our universe could not have come into being and

would not even momentarily endure.

Carlyle Deston, the only human being of his time to work the Fifth, reached it the hard

way. He had a hunch, but he could neither show it nor explain it to his fellows. They got

behind him a few times and pushed, but nothing happened. He, however, did not forget it.

It kept on niggling at him, and he kept on nibbling at it, until the two Aceys graduated.

They had something he needed and lacked; a subconscious-and therefore ineradicable

by experience, education, or knowledge innate conviction of superiority to any other race

of man. He added them, and the Funny Four-nobody knew what that uninhibited

foursome could do(-to his pushers; and the thirteen strongest psiontists of his time

rammed his questing ego into and through the psionic barriers in the direction he knew he

had to go.

He went: came back in zero time: and lay in a deep coma for forty hours. He could not

explain, even to hysterical Barbara or to eagerly inquisitive Adams, where he had been or

what he had done or what he had learned. However, he knew what he knew: wherefore

a crew of the finest technicians of Galmetia, working under his minute supervision, built a

machine.

It was like no other machine ever built by man. Everything, apparently, was input. It could

take half the power of the gigantic leybyrdite-built generators of the gigantic

leybyrdite-built Explorer, but there was no visible or perceptible output of any kind. There

were no controls; no buttons or meters or dials or gauges. All the immense power of that

machine would be controlled purely by thought. If that machine performed at all, it would

perform at the immeasurable speed of thought.

His hunch was that the thing would work. Since he could work the Fifth Nume alone (no

woman can even perceive that Nume) as well as he and Barbara together could work the

Fourth, he was practically certain that it would work. Certain enough to let the others

who had insisted on coming along, even Barbara, do so: but no one else. And most

certainly not the kids. Something might happen.

Shortly after Dann's last protest to Adams, the psiontists aboard the Explorer gathered

in the control room, around Deston's enigmatic "Z-gun."

"But what could happen, Babe?" Bernice asked, nervously.

º Don't worry, Bun. What is going to happen, as nearly as. I can express it, is that I'm

going to transform the coordinates of those ships from the continuous phase to the

discontinuous phase of Reality; using just enough energy to control the balance."

"You are not answering her question," Adams said. "There is an indeterminate and at

present indeterminable probability that any disturbance of equilibrium will initiate an

irreversibly accelerating transformation of the entire cosmos, so that . . ."

"Wow(" Cecily exclaimed. "It's bad enough, thinking of destroying one whole planet, but

the whole cosmos!" "Compared to the discontinuous imbalances always there?" Deston

protested. "Have a heart, Doc! And you two gals, listen-what Doe calls a probability isn't

even an actual possibility-it's out beyond nine sigmas exactly as possible as that an

automatic screw machine running six-thirty-two hex nuts would accidentally turn out a

cash-register full of money. If it wasn't safe do you think I'd have Bobby here? Hell, I

wouldn't be here myself!"

"Young man, your reasoning is deplorable," Adams said. "Your data is entirely insufficient

for the computation of sigma in this case. Furthermore, the term `probability,' in its

meaningful sense, is defined by . . ."

"Meaningful sense and all, we'll drop all that stuff right now," Barbara said, unusually

sharply for her. "Besides, it's about time to, isn't it?"

It was, and Deston stretched out on a davenport and closed his eyes. When the first

Communist warship appeared in subspace he stiffened suddenly and it vanished. As

more and more warships immerged and were caught in whatever it was that Deston and

his Z-gun were doing, nothing seemed to be happening in the Explorer at all. The

machine never had done anything, apparently, and Deston's body was stiffly rigid all the

time.

Adams, leaving Stella behind, bored into that psionic murk with every iota of his psionic

might. He perceived much-no two of those disappearances occurred in exactly the same

way-and he would remember every detail of everything he perceived.

When the ghastly performance was over Deston got up, jerked his head at Barbara, and

the two walked out of the room with their arms tightly around each other. No words

passed between them; or any thoughts except the knowledge of complete oneness.

Neither words nor thoughts would do any good. It had had to be done and he was the

only one who could do it. So he had done it.

They would have to live with it. That was the way it was. Nothing could be done about it.

Adams, on the other hand-tall, lean, gray-haired, gray-eyed, gray-clad Adams-was

purring like a tomcat full of canaries. "Fabulous! Utterly priceless!" he enthused, to

anyone who cared to listen. "Thus is probably the greatest break-through of all time! The

data we have obtained here will undoubtedly be the basis for a completely new system

of science!"

Just before the adjournment of the board meeting following the fall of New Russia,

Maynard said:

"Since science has not yet devised a recorder of thought, I will sum up briefly, for the

minutes, the sense of this meeting.

"The political 'situation on Earth, while better than it was, is still bad. We have discussed

strategy and have formulated plans by virtue of which we expect to win the next election.

"Plastics' serf world presents many problems, but they appear to be more a matter of

time than of intrinsic impossibility. The psiontists of that world are working out a program

of rehabilitation that promises excellent results.

"The ordinary citizens of New Russia will not present any problems. The non-psionic

commissars and hardcore Party members will not be allowed to present any problems.

The New Russian psiontists do, however, present a very serious problem; one that has

taken up practically all of the time of this meeting.

"Psionics is necessarily ethical, but ethics is not at present an absolute. Thus most of the

New Russian psiontists, steeped from infancy in Communist doctrine and never exposed

to any except Communist thought, are as thoroughly convinced that Communism is right

as we are that it is wrong. This difference of opinion in these cases, while total at

present, is probably not irreconcilable. It is believed that when these uninformed persons

have studied all aspects of the truth they will of their own accord come around to our

way of thinking.

"There are some well-informed Communists psiontists, however, who believe so

thoroughly that Communism is right that they would rather become martyrs to its cause

than renounce it. Feodr Ilyowicz, a man of wide learning, knowledge, and experience,

was one. What can be done about such men as he was?

"Are we right? We do not know. We cannot know.

`All we can do-what we must do-is what eighty percent or more of this Board believes to

be right.

"Our prime tenet, the solid bed-rock foundation upon which the Galactic Federation is

being built, defines `right' as that which, in the opinion of at least four fifths of the

membership of its Board of Directors, is for the best good of humanity as a whole.

"It is a fact that about seventy percent of all known human population is non-Communist.

This Board is in virtually unanimous agreement that about ninety six percent of all people

now under Communist rule as we know it would be vastly better off under Galaxianism;

would live much fuller, freer, and better lives than under Communism. Thus, we believe

that Galaxianism is for the best good of about ninety eight and eight tenths percent of all

humanity known to us.

"More than the required four fifths of us have agreed upon three points. First: each such

psiontist as Feodr Ilyowicz was will be watched. Second: no general ruling will be made,

but each such case will be decided upon its own merits. Third, the penalty of death will

not be imposed.

"If there is no other business requiring our attention at this time, a voiced motion for

adjournment is now in order."