Science Fiction - Daily Short Stories

The Hour of Battle - Robert Sheckley

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Duration:: 16m
Broadcast on:: 05 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Whether you're a lifelong learner, a parent seeking bedtime stories for your children, or someone looking to unwind after a long day, we have something just for you. We invite you to try SolgaMedia Free for one month. Explore our extensive collection and find the perfect audio content that resonates with you. Join our community of passionate listeners and unlock a world of knowledge, relaxation, and inspiration. Visit solvaedmedia.com today and start your free trial. That's S-O-L-G-O-O-D-M-E-D-I-A dot com. The Hour of Battle by Robert Shekley As one of the Guardian ships protecting Earth, the crew had a problem to solve. Just how do you protect a race from an enemy who can take over a man's mind without seeming effort or warning? "That hand didn't move, did it?" Edwardson asked, standing at the port, looking at the stars. "No," Moore said. He had been staring fixedly at the Addison detector for over an hour. Now he blinked three times rapidly and looked again. Not a millimeter. "I don't think it moved either," Castle added from behind the gunfire panel, and that was that. The slender black hand of the indicator rested unwaveringly on zero. The ship's guns were ready, their black mouths opened to the stars. A steady hum filled the room. It came from the Addison detector, and the sound was reassuring. It reinforced the fact that the detector was attached to all the other detectors forming a giant network around Earth. "Why in hell don't they come?" Edwardson asked, still looking at the stars. "Why don't they hit?" "Ah, shut up," Moore said. He had a tired, glum look. High on his right temple was an old radiation burn, a sunburst of pink scar tissue. From a distance it looked like a decoration. "I just wish they'd come," Edwardson said. He returned from the port to his chair, bending to clear the low metal ceiling. "Don't you wish they'd come?" Edwardson helped a narrow, timid face of a mouse, but a highly intelligent mouse, one that cat did well to avoid. "Don't you?" he repeated. The other men didn't answer. They had settled back to their dreams, staring hypnotically at the detector face. "They've had enough time," Edwardson said, half to himself. Castle yawned and licked his lips. "Anyone wants a place in gin?" he asked, stroking his beard. The beard was a momento of his undergraduate days. Castle maintained he could store almost fifteen minutes' worth of oxygen in its follicles, although he had never stepped into space and helmeted to prove it. Moore slipped away, and Edwardson automatically watched the indicator. This routine had been drilled into them, branded into their subconscious. They would have soon cut their throats as they'd leave the indicator unguarded. "Do you think it'll come soon?" Edwardson asked, his brown rodent size on the indicator. The men didn't answer him. After two months together in space, their conversational powers were exhausted. They weren't interested in Castle's undergraduate days, Moore in Moore's conquests. They were bored to death even with their own thoughts and dreams, bored with the attack they expected momentarily. "Just one thing I'd like to know," Edwardson said, slipping with ease into an old conversational gambit. "How far can they do it?" They had talked for weeks about the enemy's telepathic range, but they always returned to it. As professional soldiers, they couldn't help but speculate on the enemy and his weapons. It was their shop talk. "Well," Moore said weirdly, "I detect a network covers the system out beyond Mars's orbit." "Where we sit?" Castle said, watching the indicators now that the others were talking. "They might not even know we have a detection unit working," Moore said, as he had said a thousand times. "Oh, stop!" Edwardson said, his thin face twisted in scorn. "They're telepathic! They must have read every bit of stuff in Everset's mind." Everset didn't know we had a detection unit. Moore said, his eyes returning to the dial. He was captured before we had it. "Look," Edwardson said, "they ask him, 'Boy, what would you do if you knew a telepathic race was coming to take over the Earth? How would you guard the planet?'" "Idle speculation," Castle said. "Maybe Everset didn't think of this." "He thinks like a man, doesn't he? Everyone agreed on this defense. Everset would, too." "Siligistic," Castle murmured, "very shaky." "I sure wish he hadn't been captured," Edwardson said. "It could have been worse," Moore's put in, his face, sadder than ever. "What if they captured both of them?" "I wish they'd come," Edwardson said. Richard Everset and C.R. Jones had gone on the first interstellar flight. They had found an inhabited planet in the region of Vega. The rest was standard procedure. A flip of the coin had decided it. Everset went down in the scouter, maintaining radio contact with Jones in the ship. The recording of that contact was preserved for all Earth to hear. "Just met the natives," Everset said. "Funny looking bunch. Give you the physical description later." "Are they trying to talk to you?" Jones asked, guiding the ship in a slow spiral over the planet. "No, hold it. Well, I'm damned. They tell a pathic. How do you like that?" "Great," Jones said. "Go on." "Hold it. Say, Jonesy, I don't know as I like these boys. They haven't got nice minds." "Brother!" "What is it?" Jones asked, lifting the ship a little higher. "Mines, these bastards are power-crazy. Seems they've hit all the systems around here, looking for someone to-" "Yeah." "I've got that a bit wrong," Everset said, pleasantly. "They're not so bad." Jones had a quick mind, a suspicious nature, and good reflexes. He set the accelerator for all the geese he could take, lay down on the floor, and said, "Tell me more." "Come on down," Everset said, in violation of every door of spaceflight. "These guys are all right. As a matter of fact, they're the most marvellous." That was where the recording ended, because Jones was pinned to the floor by 20 years of acceleration as he boosted the ship to the level needed for the sea jump. He broke three ribs getting home, but he got there. A telepathic species was on the march. What was Earth going to do about it? A lot of speculation necessarily clothed the bare bones of Jones' information. Evidently the species could take over a mind with ease. With Everset, it seemed that they had insinuated their thoughts into his, delicately altering his previous convictions. They had possessed him with remarkable ease. "How about Jones? Why haven't they taken him? Was distance of factor? Well, haven't they been prepared for the suddenness of his departure?" One thing was certain. Everything Everset knew, the enemy knew. That meant that they knew where Earth was, and how defenseless the planet was, to their form of attack. It could be expected that they were on their way. Something was needed to nullify their tremendous advantage, but what sort of something? What armour is there against thought? How do you dodge a wavelength? Pouch-eyed scientists gravely consulted their periodic tables. And how do you know when a man has been possessed? Although the enemy was clumsy with Everset, would they continue to be clumsy? Wouldn't they learn? Psychologists tore their hair and beweiled the absence of an absolute scale for humanity. Of course, something had to be done at once. The answer from a technological planet was a technological one. Build a space fleet and equip it with some sort of detection network. This was done in record time. The Addison detector was developed, a cross between radar and the electroencephalograph. Any alteration from the typical human brainwave pattern of the occupants of a detector equipped ship would boost the indicator around the dial. Even a bad dream or a case of indigestion would jar it. It seemed probable that any attempt to take over a human mind would disturb something. There had to be a point of interaction somewhere. That was what the Addison detector was supposed to detect. Maybe it would. The spaceships, three men to a ship, dotted space between Earth and Mars, warming a gigantic sphere with Earth in the center. Tens of thousands of men crouched behind gunfire panels, watching the dials on the Addison detector. The unmoving dials. "Do you think I could fire a couple of bursts?" Abwoodson asked, his fingers on the gunfire button. "Just to limber the guns." "Those guns don't need limbering," Castle said, stroking his beard. "Besides, you throw the whole fleet into a panic." "Castle?" Moss said, very quietly. "Get your hand off your beard." "Why should I?" Castle asked. "Because," Moss answered, almost in a whisper. "I am about to ram it and write down your fat throat." "Castle grinned and tightened his fists." "Bless you," he said. "I'm tired of looking at that scar of yours." He stood up. "Cut it," Abwoodson said weirdly. "Watch the birdie." "No reason to, really," Moss said, leaning back. There's an alarm bell attached. But he still looked at the dial. "What if the bell doesn't work?" Abwoodson asked. "What if the dial is jammed? How would you like something cold slithering into your mind?" "The dial will work," Castle said. His eyes shifted from Abwoodson's face to the motionless indicator. "Oh, I think I'll sack in," Abwoodson said. "Stick around," Castle said, "play some gin." "All right," Abwoodson found and shuffled the greasy cards, while Moss took a turn glaring at the dial. "As you wish they'd come," he said. "Cut," Abwoodson said, handing the pack to Castle. "I wonder what our friends look like?" Moss said, watching the dial. "Probably remarkably like us," Abwoodson said, dealing the cards. Castle picked them up one by one, slowly, as if he hoped something interesting would be the end of them. "They should have given us another man," Castle said. "We could play bridge." "I don't play bridge," Abwoodson said. "You could learn." "Why didn't we send a task force?" Moss asked. "Why didn't we bomb their planet?" "Don't be dumb," Abwoodson said. "We'd lose any shit we sent. Probably getting them back at us possessed and firing." "Not with nine," Castle said. "I don't give a good damn if you're not with a thousand," Abwoodson said, "Gailie. How much do I owe you now?" $3,508,010. "I sure wish they'd come," Moss said. "Want me to write a check?" "Take your time. Take till next week." "Someone should reason with the bastards," Moss said, looking at the port. Castle immediately looked at the dial. "I just thought of something," Abwoodson said. "Yeah?" "I bet it feels horrible to have your mind grabbed," Abwoodson said. "I bet it's awful." "You'll know when it happens," Castle said. "Did it ever set?" "Probably, you just couldn't do anything about it." "My mind feels fine," Castle said. "But the first one of you guys starts acting queer. Watch out." "They all laughed." "Well," Abwoodson said, "I'd sure like a chance to reason with them. This is stupid." "Why not?" Castle asked. "What, you mean go out and meet them?" "Sure," Castle said. "We're doing no good sitting here." "I should think we could do something," Abwoodson said slowly. "After all, they're not invincible." "They're reasoning beings." Moss punched a course on the ship's tape, then looked up. "You think we should contact the command? Tell them what we're doing." "No," Castle said, and Abwoodson nodded in agreement. "Red tape! We'll just go out and see what we can do if there won't talk, we'll blast them out of space." "Look!" Out of the port they could see the red flare of a reaction engine, the next ship in their sector speeding forward. "They must have got the same idea," Abwoodson said. "Let's get there first," Castle said. Moss shoved the accelerator in and they were thrown back in their seats. "That dial hasn't moved yet, has it?" Abwoodson asked, over the clamor of the detector alarm bell. "Not to move out of it," Castle said, looking at the dial with its indicator slammed all the way over to the highest notch. End of the Hour of Battle by Robert Shekley "I'm Victoria Cash. Thanks for calling the Lucky Land Hotline. If you feel like you do the same thing every day, press one. If you're ready to have some serious fun, for the chance to redeem some serious prizes, press two." We heard you loud and clear, so go to luckylandslots.com right now and play over a hundred social casino-style games for free. Get lucky today! At luckylandslots.com "No purchase necessary, VGW group void prohibited by law, 18 plus terms of condition supply." Hey there, listeners. Are you ready to unlock a world of captivating stories? 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