Untitled, p.1
Untitled, page 1
Crossfire
New Worlds - June 1953
(1953)*
James White
Illustrated by Hutchings
They were just seven rather strange looking canisters— something new the enemy were using, no doubt. But the Bomb Disposal squad found them too hot to handle.
-
Cotrell sat on the loose earth at the crater's rim and watched the tank close up to point-blank range. It was one of the newest and deadliest models; a shell from its main gun could knock a hole through four-inch armour plate with no trouble at all. That main gun was already loaded, and was now pointed directly at Cotrell. They couldn't miss him.
But they couldn't hit him either.
No doubt they would reload and try again, and they would keep on trying. Just like the machine-gunners back of him, and the two light tanks and the scout car over there on the right. If persistence was a virtue, he though, then these guys would very shortly be saints. Such trouble they were going to in order to wipe out just three men, but he supposed, a little cynically, it was the principle of the thing.
Cotrell sighed and looked over at Nelson, who was lying propped on one elbow and watching everything with a show of interest that fooled nobody. He was scared stiff. Beside him Corporal Barnes lay flat on his back, breathing slowly and economically, the way they're supposed to do on wrecked submarines. He did this because the air in here was stale, almost unbreathable, and that was the proper thing to do. Barnes was very practical.
If only one of the shells would get through and end everything quickly, before the slow, painful death from suffocation that was so surely coming. Cotrell glared again at the four-foot silvery torpedo lying a few yards away which was the cause of all this mess and wished fervently that he'd never heard of it. But he knew if he had the choice to make again, he would go through with it in exactly the same manner. Those torpedos had turned out to be something rather special.
They had been first sighted by a returning patrol. Then a bomb-disposal unit had gone out to look them over and, if necessary, to pull their teeth. Six hours later the unit returned, the men wearing looks of extreme bewilderment and refusing even to mention the job to anybody at all. Nobody likes being called a liar, a drunk, or mentally deficient, so they clammed up and discussed it only among themselves. Their officer, on the other hand, wanted most desperately to talk about it. He grabbed a jeep and scorched off to see his CO. He kept muttering to himself as he rode; he was a very shaken man.
The CO. listened to everything he had to say with quiet attention. One would never have guessed, by his expression at any rate, that he was believing perhaps one quarter of it all. In his most gentle and fatherly voice he told the near-hysterical officer to dismiss and take it easy for a bit; then he began to think. Eventually he decided to play it safe and refer the matter up. Maybe the enemy had a secret weapon after all.
In jig time a lordly Major from Weapon Research arrived. He took a handful of technicians and about every portable testing device known to science out to the scene of so much mental anguish to settle the matter for good. He was very' thorough—his report later was easily half an inch thick—but he too was completely baffled. This worried him, because up until now at any rate, he thought he knew his stuff. There was only one thing to do. Very politely and through the proper channels, he too, screamed for help.
Help arrived in the persons of Lt. -Colonel Richard Cotrell and Captain William Nelson. Cotrell was a tall, rangy individual with the characteristic lines of asceticism, or maybe ulcers, around his thin-lipped mouth. He spoke like a schoolteacher. Nelson was the small, nervously active type who seem in a perpetual state of extreme worry. He wore rimless glasses, but he never worried about anything, in fact, he had quite a sense of humour, which only goes to show. Both wore their uniforms with the awkward air of the civilian scientist who would much rather have flannels and a lab coat, for they weren't regulars, but had been roped in by the Army to do some very hush-hush research.
Cotrell asked for six experienced men to form an escort for their protection in case they were attacked, and to tote some of the equipment. He could have asked for a full company and got them with no trouble at all, but he thought a small force would stand a better chance of doing the job unobserved. And it was very necessary that they do it unobserved, for circumstances pointed to the fact that the enemy was unaware that several of their secret weapons were lying in No Man's land, defenceless against the prying instruments and keen minds of hostile scientists. Up to now, though, the things had proved to be anything but defenceless, and the 'keen minds of the scientists' had seemed something less than razor sharp, but the General was confident that Cotrell would find the answer. While he was finding it, however, just to be on the safe side, he was to maintain strict radio silence.
The General had also said he was a nice guy and a very important person to his department. He didn't want him leaving his brains lying on the ground somewhere, so remember to keep his head down — but find out what those blistering things were, and what the blue blazes they were meant to do. So far they didn't seem to do anything at all.
So Cotrell and Nelson, with their sweating, heavily-laden bodyguard, went crawling out to discover what the torpedos were and what they were supposed to do.
-
The original discovery had been made in a little area of rocky, broken ground surrounded on all sides by flat near-desertlike country that was just the thing for tanks but gave very little cover for men trying to efface themselves. This rugged jumble of rocks had been used often by both sides as an advanced observation post, and as a place for raiding parties to take cover. But that had been long ago. Now the big guns of both sides had its range to a T. At frequent but irregular intervals, just on general principles, they would plaster it so the place wasn't popular any more. At the moment, however, it was peaceful.
Cotrell had no difficulty in finding the upturned enemy truck with the silver torpedoes scattered on the ground beside it, and the deep bomb-crater nearby that from which the previous investigators had worked. It was an old crater, with grass growing in patches on its walls and floors. As craters go, it was fairly comfortable. They began sorting out their gear while the escort distributed itself around them in a wide circle and began waiting for something to happen, all the while hoping, of course, that nothing would.
Then the two officers crawled up to the rim and took their first real look at things.
The enemy truck had been shot up from the air. It was lying on its side, burned out, a total wreck. The seven silvery objects lay close together about ten yards from the truck. There were also a few empty metal canisters lying among them, but these had been proved innocuous. The nearest torpedo gleamed brightly in the sunlight less than three yards from the crater's rim.
It was about four feet long, and made from some highly-polished metal that seemed to be a perfect reflector. The nose came to a smoothly-rounded point. The tail, which was bare of any of the usual guiding vanes or detonating devices, was also smoothly-rounded except for a small flat area at the extreme end. This was about the size of a penny and was painted black. There were no other surface markings.
-
When they had studied it for a few minutes in silence Cotrell shook his head in puzzlement and shrugged fatalistically. "Better make a start, I suppose," he said, "You stay here and reach me the stuff while I take a closer look. Okay?" He scrambled up over the rim and lay flat beside the torpedo. At intervals he called for various items of equipment which were handed up to him. Test meters and other enigmatic devices made a growing pile around him on the ground, but he was getting strictly nowhere. He shook his head in bewilderment. One would almost think this ... this some thing or other was placed here for the sole purpose of driving technicians into nervous breakdowns. He gave up for the time being in disgust and slid back into the crater.
"Well, what is it?" asked Nelson, then he caught the other' expression and ended, "Oh! You don't know."
Cotrell took off his helmet and flung himself down beside the other. "No, I don't know." His voice was perplexed. He looked completely baffled as he went on, "But Major Thompson was right. It doesn't seem to be a bomb. It's too light to contain enough H.E. to do much damage, and if it's an empty I can't find the slightest trace of a filling valve. And the thing must have been put together by a watch-maker. There isn't a single join anywhere on its surface that I can see."
He paused, thinking. He was beginning to understand just how the Major who had preceded him had felt after spending four hours with the thing. But he, unlike Thompson, couldn't very well pass the buck.
He continued, "I didn't find the skin heating up suddenly the way he did, but then he tried to carry it away with him, whereas I only rolled it over a few times. Apart from that everything checks exactly with Thompson's report. Incidentally, I saw one of his asbestos gloves. It was almost burnt through, so it seems certain that it did get red hot when he lifted it. Up to now I thought he'd been exaggerating that part of it a little."
-
A shell landed with a crash less than a hundred yards away. Nelson winced and Cotrell reached hurriedly for his helmet. They both looked a trifle shame-faced. They weren't used to being this close to the war. Cotrell began speaking again.
"I did find out a little more about it. Maybe it will mean something to you, I can't make a thing out of it." He pulled out a soiled notebook and consulted it. Then he stated, "The skin is made of some extremely hard, non-magnetic metal and is between one eighth and one quarter inches thick. There are also
"There is a flat, black, metal disc with a thin white line around its circumference, set flush with one end. I thought at first it was a colour code painted on, but it is definitely metal, very warm to the touch and pitted as though from periodic heating. It is also faintly radio-active. Nothing harmful, mind, but just barely detectable." Cotrell slapped his notebook shut, looked up at Nelson, and grinned, making a joke of the whole thing. He stated, "We have here a hollow, closed cylinder with a metal rod of irregular thickness running down its centre, which is slightly radio-active. Now, would the bright boy facing me please stand up and tell the class what it is?"
Nelson thoughtfully cleaned his glasses, then, replying in kind, piped, "Please Sir, it could be anything—and if I stand up here I'll get a hole in the head."
"You're a big help," the other's tone was scathing. "And," he ended cuttingly, "That was the general idea."
-
They were both giving the matter very serious thought even though their cross-talk seemed to make light of it. After Nelson had spoken gloatingly and at some length of just how glad he was that HE hadn't been given charge of this job, he became serious again.
"Does it make a noise?" he asked. "Any ticking or humming noises? It might be some sort of time-bomb."
Cotrell shook his head. "With all this shooting going on around here I couldn't be sure. But there did seem to be a low, irregular ticking, like the sound mice might make scampering about on a tiled floor ..." He stopped suddenly and grew visibly pale. Then in a low, shocked whisper said, "Oh, no."
"What's up?" queried Nelson, then he too, realised the implications of the other's words. Unconsciously he wriggled his shoulders as he protested, "A Bacteriological Bomb. But that's impossible. They wouldn't dare ... Still, maybe they would." He grimaced in disgust, "Augh, I feel lousy already."
"We can't be sure of that yet," said Cotrell quickly, I'll have to take another look, Have you got a magnifying glass?"
Naturally a magnifying glass was about the only thing they hadn't taken with them, but Nelson liberated a pocket flash-lamp from one of the escort and the crude lens from that had to do instead.
For some time now gunfire from the enemy positions had been steadily growing in intensity, and there was considerable air activity as well. With increasing frequency low-flying jets flashed screaming across a sky already streaked with the filmy vapour trails of high-altitude bombers. It looked as if something was afoot. Cotrell, again sprawled alongside the nearest torpedo, could scarcely make himself heard above the din. He was examining minutely the surface of the thing with the glass, and calling out his findings to Nelson who was taking everything down. Details of the black metal disc came first, followed by a description of the white circle around it, which seemed to be a hard plastic. Then he tried to see how the shell as a whole was put together.
At first he had no success, then, "Willie! Willie!" he called excitedly, "Get this down quick. I can see inside. The first eight inches back of the nose have gone transparent, just like that. Don't know what caused it, but I can see right in ..."
Just then something landed nearby with an earth-shaking crash and a few fair-sized rocks came bouncing into the crater. Over the ringing in his ears Nelson heard the other's voice jabbering away as if nothing had happened. He shook his head to clear it and wished his shorthand was faster or that Cotrell would slow down.
"... Tiny, complex mechanisms linked by hair-thin wires, but so small. Our micro techniques can't touch this at all. It seems to be divided into thin-walled compartments of different sizes ... Oh, why can't I have a decent lens, everything blurs and jiggles around ... The inside is filled with a yellowish gas, and in the nose ... Wait! Something moved. It's a snail, no, two snails. But they're going too fast for snails. Maybe ..."
-
Something, he couldn't say just what, made Nelson look up. The plane was still quite high, but it was moving awfully fast, straight down. There could be no doubt whatever at whom it was being aimed. Cotrell was yelling, "It's not a bomb. I know what it is now. I can't believe it, but it's a ..." Nelson screamed a warning to take cover but it was drowned in the mounting roar of engines. He did the only thing possible. He reached way out, grabbed an ankle and hauled Cotrell frantically back into the crater. He was just in time.
With a high-pitched whoosh the plane loosed a rocket. They heard it corning, then something tried to push them into the ground and shake them to pieces at the same time. They were deafened, blinded by dust, pelted with falling earth and stones, and a large, jagged-edged chunk of metal dug a hole in the ground three inches from Cotrell's ear, but they were both unhurt. They lay still for a few minutes, trying to convince themselves of this.
The plane didn't make another pass at them, and they heard it roaring off into the distance. After a while the sergeant heading the escort began calling names to see if anyone had copped it. Nobody had. Nelson raised his head and looked hard at Cotrell. Picking his words with great care, he said: "I realise there was considerable noise and confusion when I dragged you in just now. Probably I didn't hear you right, but I could swear you said the word 'Spaceship.' Am I suffering from an auricular condition, or is that what you said?"
Cotrell sat up. His face was dirty and there was a lot of skin missing from his nose and chin as a result of his being dragged on it across several feet of very rugged terrain, but apparently he could not even feel it. His eyes shone with excitement, "That's right," he affirmed. His voice was exultant, almost exalted. "Spaceships." Seven of them. That's all they could be. It explains everything. The sudden transparency of the nose. The tiny machines, controls, wiring, little creatures working at things. They're spaceships, I tell you. An extraterrestrial life-form, and intelligent." He stopped, his mind leaping ahead, trying to grasp what this single great fact would mean to humanity. Then in more normal tones he continued, "Go see for yourself. Here's the glass, take a good look ... Oh."
"What's wrong?" called Nelson, seeing the other's expression change to one of dismayed apprehension. He was already half out of the crater—he didn't believe it, of course, but he was very eager to see just what was coming off here.
"That rocket," Cotrell asked tensely, "Did it hit them?"
"Nah. It landed on the other side of the truck," answered Nelson. Then a puzzled note crept into his voice as he went on, "Funny, it was headed right for us, too, then it sort of wobbled and sheered off. Guess we're just lucky, I suppose." He wriggled away, and was gone for some time. When he came back he looked a bit sick.
"Well?"
Nelson nodded and said grudgingly, "I suppose you're right. They could be spaceships, manned spaceships." He shuddered involuntarily, "Maybe 'manned' is the wrong word. Ugh, those shiny wet lumps. And those pink hairs growing out of them and curling and writhing about. They're sickening. Whatever planet they come from they must have lived under its rocks—its slimiest, dampest, mouldiest rocks. I don't like them at all."
Cotrell was pointing out heatedly and at some length that Intelligence was the important thing, and not the body that housed it, when the sergeant called softly to say someone was coming, and suggested that they keep deathly quiet just in case it wasn't a friend. Cotrell said, "Thank you, Sergeant," and shut up.
