New Writings in SF 20 - [Anthology] Read online

  After a further minute the noise began to quieten. As the harmonic complexities grew less, Horstman allowed his screwed-up face to slacken and took the cloth plugs from his ears. There was no doubt from the tonal qualities that each sonic generator put forth a pure, unmodulated sine wave. Had he been asked to produce notes of similar intensity he would have hazarded a need for nearly a ton of equipment and a heavy concrete base to ensure its survival. That such a powerful and prolonged effect would have come from a projectile capable of being fired from a short carbine was neither logical nor credible.

  He was now faced with the same enigma which Maidment had brought to him before the present exercises had been planned. Apparently the enemy had access to powerful and extremely destructive sonic sources and all the evidence pointed to the idea that these sources were capable of being delivered by hand weapons. Horstman was at first inclined to suspect the enemy of using an elaborate trick designed to suggest the existence of a weapon which could not actually be built. A little further consideration told him that Maidment’s suicide squad must certainly have been destroyed by the sonic attack and there was therefore no point in the enemy exercising the trick at this time. Not unless they suspected that someone like Horstman was crouched somewhere out in the ruins.

  This last thought reminded him that he had work to do to ensure his own survival. Although it was now nearly dark, he hauled out the long pole with the tattered white sheet attached and propped it up with bricks against the wall outside. In his weakened condition, this cost him considerable effort and the ache in his leg brought tears to his eyes. Returning inside, he became conscious of the dangers of exposure to the increasing cold. Painfully he explored the area of the room to discover which corner was less affected by the cruel draught. Having settled on the least inhospitable spot, he dragged towards it the pieces of cloth, sacking and paper which had been provided for his bed and proceeded to arrange these fragments over himself methodically to conserve his body heat.

  He had no food left, nor had he any hopes of obtaining any. Taking his empty belly to bed with him along with his other miseries, he lay in the darkness listening for sounds which might tell him of the advancing patrols and trying to analyse his impressions of the sonic weapons they had used. The sole item of consolation for his sufferings lay in the knowledge of the whereabouts of Maidment’s powerful but cleverly disguised transmitters, of which there were several, which he must use to report his collected data at the point where his continued habitation of enemy territory could serve no further purpose. At that point, Maidment had promised to send in a commando force to get him out...

  The cold, the hunger, the pain in his legs, the gripe in his guts and the problems on his mind, all conspired to render sleep an unlikely proposition. Thus the startled shock of his awakening was accompanied by completely genuine surprise. His return to consciousness coincided with the door being smashed open and a tall, dark, helmeted figure appearing in silhouette against the red of the morning sunrise. Horstman’s groan as he attempted to raise his shoulders from the floor was also totally authentic. So was the fear in his eyes as he watched the point of the long steel blade which probed at his stomach.

  ‘Outside!’

  Horstman managed to stagger to his feet, and crossed the room, dragging his twisted leg behind him. In the open air, the unwarming light of the early sun glinted off two more carbine barrels, but these wavered and were rested when the soldiers saw his condition. He studied the men curiously through bleared eyes, never before having seen the enemy in the flesh. They were less curious about him. After a perfunctory search of the room, the first soldier followed him out, looked him up and down and then swore more in sympathy than in anger.

  ‘No damn sniper, you. No damn anything, soon. You have papers?’

  As if to reinforce the point of his infirmity, Horstman’s throat acquired a rattle and he coughed unhealthily. From the pocket of his coat he produced his papers and held them out. They were forgeries which could pass any inspection. The nearest soldier looked at the worn and dirty cards with some distaste and did not bother to take them.

  ‘Why you stay here, eh?’

  The soldier did not really expect a reply. Horstman’s twisted leg and sickly appearance suggested that he had no option but to stay in the township, regardless of the pressures. Feeling in his pouch, one of the soldiers produced a stick of high-nutrition food compress and pressed it into Horstman’s hand.

  ‘You have water?’

  ‘Some,’ mumbled Horstman.

  ‘If you want good water, you find some at our camp over there. This is no place for civilians, but I doubt if you’d stand transportation.’ His face showed that he was sure Horstman had very little time to live.

  Horstman nodded and looked at the stick of compress in his hand. This was not the sort of leniency he had expected to receive at the hands of the dreadful enemy. His eyes asked the question: ‘Why?’

  The soldiers were grimly amused, but walked away. They obviously had other, more important, things to do. Horstman was left to answer his own question. People were becoming rather scarce in the midst of total war—even sick and lame people were presumably better than sterile desolation. Strange how one’s sense of values altered when viewing the same problem from a different location.

  The soldiers would probably not have dismissed him so casually had they realised the shrewd brain which was summing-up their equipment. Each man’s helmet was equipped with sound-absorbing ear protectors which rotated up away from the ears when not required, giving the helmets a heavy, bulbous look. The weapons the men carried were conventional short carbines, which did not appear to have been modified in any way. Their weapon pouches, too, seemed to be of a regular type. None of the ammunition, of course, was visible.

  Despite his theoretical objections, Horstman became inclined to the view that these were some of the men who possessed sonic weapon potential, though he seriously doubted that any potent source of sonic energy could be thrown by a short carbine. He rather suspected that the sound weapon was different and substantially larger and would probably be located somewhere near where they had chosen to camp. Fortunately the invitation to obtain water from their stores gave him the pretext he needed to visit the site.

  Sucking the protein-vitamin compress as he went, he dragged himself back to his room to look for a suitable water container. The only thing he could find was an already full glass bottle which Maidment had left him. Reluctantly he drank some and poured the remainder into the dust where it would not be noticed. He had reservations about being able to rely on the soldiers for much water and he hated to waste any of what little there was in the district which was potable. However, he had no other choice.

  The thing that shocked him as he began to walk in search of the camp, was to find how severely his body had deteriorated. A minimum-survival diet and an injured leg were barely tolerable when under the watchful eyes of Maidment’s medics, but quite a different and more alarming proposition when alone in enemy territory in continuous cold and without any prospect of relief or hospitalisation. It took him nearly an hour to drag himself the bare kilometre to where he discerned a group of enemy trucks backed hard against a line of shattered autumn trees. As he approached, he was challenged by a sentry, who immediately lost interest when he saw the condition of the visitor. The soldier on the service truck was surprisingly humane.

  ‘Water? Take what you want, old ghost. We’ve enough to spare. Better drink that than puddles, eh? There’s enough ways for dying with epidemics. Are there many more of you out there?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ said Horstman, hoarsely, though he had seen no sign of other refugees that day. Probably they had all been killed or damaged by the sonic barrage of the previous evening. Just possibly some were still in hiding, too frightened of the soldiers to come out of their holes.

  He took his bottle of water, which stank of chlorine, and dragged his way back out of the camp towards the room that he, perhaps ridiculously, had co
me to think of as home. Certainly it was the place to which Maidment had promised to direct his commandos when Horstman wanted out and therefore he was forced to remain within a reasonable radius.

  As he went, he looked surreptitiously into the backs of the other trucks, expecting to see large generators and some sort of massive sonic transducers. They contained nothing of the sort. One truck was cunningly kitted-out as living quarters and the rest contained only a varied assortment of boxed and bottled stores. He knew the inference of this discovery, but was still reluctant to accept that a short carbine could throw any small device capable of producing such a shattering sonic output. Power to weight ratios alone precluded such a possibility. Only ...

  Overhead a long-range artillery barrage was beginning. The hyper-velocity shells carpeted the land with their strange supersonic Shockwaves. Fortunately none of the projectiles were programmed to fall on the ruined township. Having ascertained that the ground was clear, the enemy apparently were concentrating on long-range artillery cover under which to bring up their ground-support troops and a great deal of mobile equipment. This included some rocket projectors and some new types of war-machine.

  Horstman guessed that they meant to take full advantage of the withdrawal and probably to follow it up with a strong attack before the apparently retreating troops had time to fully consolidate their new positions. Knowing Maidment, he knew they were in for a big surprise. The new defence positions would have been carefully prepared for months behind the lines. The enemy were merely doing precisely what Maidment had intended them to do. Maidment consistently manipulated everything and everybody with a consummate mastery which claimed a very high order of genius. For Horstman, however, the game was spoiled by the knowledge that so many of Maidment’s pawns were expendable.

  * * * *

  All through the day the build-up of troops continued. A convoy of supply trucks moved in around the township and began to set up a field-supply depot. The area which yesterday had been deserted and tense, now broke into a different mood with the bustle of activity as support troops moved in behind the war-machines and began to lay down strong attack positions apparently in preparation for a further push ahead.

  Horstman suffered no interference from the soldiers. Regarding him as an oddity which constituted no threat, he was permitted to drag himself unhindered through their installations. His obvious signs of sickness won him no friends, but occasionally one of the soldiers threw him some food. He appreciated that this latitude would change sharply when totalitarian authority moved in behind the brief front-line camaraderie. Horstman tried not to think about the coming of the dreaded Police Militia. With luck he would either be rescued or dead before they came.

  His own occupation during the day was to attempt to locate and observe the members of the first patrol which had entered the township—the ones whom he knew for certain had sonic weapon potential. They were obviously a specialist group, because they had their own supplies and their own tight-knit organisation which was completely independent of the rest of the field. Painfully he explored the ruins in the area where the sonic reactions had taken place, hoping for clues or remnants, but finding none except that the very masonry itself had been pulverised where the liberation of energy had been greatest in intensity. The only cartridge cases he found in the ruins were those of common enemy design. Again and again he returned to the impossible conclusion that the sonic sources must have been fired from the short carbines. All previous Intelligence reports had indicated this to be the case and now even he could offer no alternative suggestion.

  This made it of vital importance that he examine some of the ammunition used by the sonic patrol. He emptied his bottle of water over a piece of cloth and attempted to wash with its rough chill. Then he took his water bottle back to the line of trucks against the trees, intending to ask again for water. The sonic patrol appeared to be busy elsewhere, save for the solitary guard who waved him on with a nod of his head as though a more explicit movement would have been a waste of effort.

  Not daring to believe his luck, Horstman moved between the trucks, filled the bottle himself and then turned towards the vehicle in which he judged the live munitions were kept. At this point the trucks were between him and the guard and the trees behind effectively screened him from observation. He was warily holding his breath as he ventured to look into the rear of the munitions truck, fearing that it might be occupied. There was nobody inside. The tailboard was down and the metal boxes on the racks bearing explosives warnings showed that he neared his goal.

  A swift survey told him that it was all carbine calibre ammunition. A proportion of it, however, was segregated in bright yellow boxes which bore the single word harm en! in addition to the usual codes. One of the yellow boxes was off the rack and its seals were broken. With his fingertips outstretched, Horstman could almost touch it. In trying to gain a little extra reach he knocked his injured leg on the tailboard. The pain was so immense he all but screamed.

  Then he heard soldiers coming round the trucks—the buzz of casual conversation. The chances were that they were merely proceeding to one of the other vehicles, but if they discovered him there he would certainly be shot. Ignoring the pain and summoning the last of his faded strength, Horstman gained foothold on the tailboard and dragged himself up on to the floor of the munitions truck. Here he lay, his breath hissing through his nostrils and his heart thumping in its cage as though it thought to burst a rib.

  Soon the voices faded as the men took something from another truck and moved it noisily away. Heaving with relief, Horstman prized open the lid of the yellow box and explored inside the packing. His fingers contacted cartridges in clips of five ready for insertion in the short carbines. He took a clip out and examined it in wonderment, noting a conventional metal propellant case surmounted by bullets which appeared to be made of misty glass. But the factor which drew his fingers to lock in a convulsive spasm was inscribed on the clip itself. In red was printed simply:

  7 KILHERTZ

  His brain reeled. So the sonic projectile was a fact! In his hand he held a legend and the knowledge of it dazed his thoughts. He pulled himself together, spurred by the sudden certainty that he had already stayed too long. The drop from the tailboard was an agony both physical and in terms of mental apprehension. He endured it in silence only because of the precious clip of bullets in his pocket.

  The water bottle stood against the half-tracks and he retained sufficient presence of mind to recover it before dragging himself as swiftly as he could firstly along the line of trees and then away from the vehicles altogether. This time he encountered no guard, nor anyone who might have been suspicious. However, the day was well advanced and he needed light. Therefore he forced himself to continue hurrying, though agony crossed his lips at every step. By the time he reached his room, broad bands of red cloud were stretched across the skyline and the evening light was fading. He needed to work fast.

  Although he was exhausted, he spared no thought for his pain and discomfort. He took a cartridge from the clip and dropped the rest into his pocket. He held the one he had taken against the light, trying to determine what the bullet was made of and what mysteries it contained. On close inspection its translucency appeared to be the product of a fine spiral of parallel transparent threads locked together in some vitreous material of a refractive index different from the filaments themselves. Apart from glass, he knew of no substance possessing the properties which he found; a hardness which refused to acknowledge his nail and the density and specific heat which he deduced from the weight and coldness of the projectile in his hand.

  Yet this same enigmatic projectile, he now knew for certain, contained considerably more energy than an equivalent amount of s.h.e. explosive and also a mechanism for liberating that energy in a controlled mode in the form of a high-intensity sonic wave. So what was it ? What was the secret of those spiral filaments locked so securely in a block of glass ?

  The function of the glass intrigued h
im. Was it more than just a carrier? If a tightly-coiled spring is cast into a block of resin, the potential energy remains until the matrix is destroyed—then it gets out. He wondered if here was an analogy—if somehow the very substance of potential sound had been concentrated and trapped in a block of glass, impatiently waiting for its liberation. No, the whole idea was ridiculous! Sound was a vibration, a wave-motion, nothing more. Simply the low-frequency end of the electro-magnetic spectrum—possessing no material form—incapable of being quantised.

  He stopped. Who said you can’t quantise sound? Why think merely in terms of photons? Think in terms of energy quantisation. Now try material form—think of granulated light on the Brewster-angle window of a laser. No, not material as the concept stands ... but when you’re playing at the extreme ends of the known physical realms, all sorts of unexpected things happen. Like superfluidity and superconductivity ...