“You will pardon my ignorance, good sirs,” clicked Gornas Kiew’s artificial vocalizer. “My main interests lie elsewhere, and I have been only marginally aware of this trouble. Why are the Borthudians impressing our men?”
Van Rijn cracked a nut between his teeth and reached for a glass of brandy. “The gruntbrains have not enough of their own,” he replied shortly.
“Perhaps I can make it clear,” said Kraaknach. Like most Martians of the Sirruch Horde, he had a mind orderly to the point of boredom. He ran a clawlike hand through his gray feathers and lit a rinn-tube. “Borthu is a backward planet terrestroid to eight points, with humanoid natives. They were in the early stage of nuclear energy when explorers visited them seventy-eight years ago, and their reaction to the presence of a superior culture was paranoid. They soon learned how to make modern engines of all types, and then set out to conquer themselves an empire. They now hold a volume of space about forty light-years across, though they only occupy a few Sol-type systems within it. They want nothing to do with the outside universe, and are quite able to supply all their needs within their own boundaries—with the one exception of efficient spacemen.”
“Hm-m-m,” said Firmage. “Their commoners might see things differently, it we could get a few trading ships in there. I’ve already suggested we use subversive agents—get the Kossalu and his whole bloody government overthrown from within.”
“Of course, of course,” said Van Rijn. “But that takes more time than we have got, unless we want Spica and Canopus to sew up the Sagittarius frontier while we are stopped dead here.”
“To continue,” said Kraaknach, “the Borthudians can produce as many spaceships as they want, which is a great many since their economy is expanding. In fact, its structure—capitalism not unlike ours—requires constant expansion if the whole society is not to collapse. But they cannot produce trained crews fast enough. Pride, and a not unjustified fear of our gradually taking them over, will not let them send students to us any more, or hire from us, and they have only one understaffed academy of their own.”
“I know,” said Mjambo. “It’d be a hell of a good market for indentures if we could change their minds for them.”
“Accordingly, they have in the past two years taken to waylaying our ships—in defiance of us and of all interstellar law. They capture the men, hypnocondition them, and assign them to their own merchant fleet. It takes two years to train a spaceman; we are losing an important asset in this alone.”
“Can’t we improve our evasive action?” wondered Firmage. “Interstellar space is so big. Why can’t we avoid their patrols altogether?”
“Eighty-five percent of our ships do precisely that,” Van Rijn told him. “But the hyperdrive vibrations can be detected a light-year away if you have sensitive instruments—pseudogravitational pulses of infinite velocity. Then they close in, using naval vessels, which are faster and more maneuverable than merchantmen. It will not be possible to cut our losses much by evasion tactics. Satan and small pox! You think maybe I have not considered it?”
“Well, then, how about convoying our ships through?”
“At what cost? I have been with the figures. It would mean operating the Antares run at a loss—quite apart from all the extra naval units we would have to build.”
“Then how about our arming our merchantmen?”
“Bah! A frigate-class ship needs twenty men for all the guns and instruments. A merchant ship needs only four. Consider the salaries paid to spacemen. And sixteen extra men on every ship would mean cutting down all our operations elsewhere, for lack of crews. Same pestiferous result: we cannot afford it, we would lose money in big fat gobs. What is worse, the Kossalu knows we would. He needs only wait, holding back his fig-plucking patrols, till we were too broke to continue. Then he would be able to start conquering systems like Antares.”
Firmage tapped the inlaid table with a restless finger. “Bribery, assassination, war, political and economic pressure, all seem to be ruled out,” he said. “The meeting is now open to suggestions.”
There was a silence, under the radiant ceiling.
Gornas-Kiew broke it: “Just how is this shanghaiing done? It is impossible to exchange shots while in hyperdrive.”
“Well, good sir, statistically impossible,” amended Kraaknach. “The shells have to be hypered themselves, of course, or they would revert to sublight velocity and be left behind as soon as they emerged from the drive field. Furthermore, to make a hit, they would have to be precisely in phase with the target. A good pilot can phase in on another ship, but the operation is too complex, it involves too many factors, for any artificial brain of useful size.”
“I tell you how,” snarled Van Rijn. “The pest-bedamned Borthudian ships detect the vibration-wake from afar. They compute the target course and intercept. Coming close, they phase in and slap on a tractor beam. Then they haul themselves up alongside, burn through the hull or the air lock, and board.”
“Why, the answer looks simple enough,” said Mjambo. “Equip our boats with pressor beams. Keep the enemy ships at arm’s length.”
“You forget, esteemed colleague, that beams of either positive or negative sign are powered from the engines,” said Kraaknach. “And a naval ship has larger engines than a merchantman.”
“Well, then, why not arm our crews? Give ’em heavy blasters and let ’em blow the boarding parties to hell.”
“The illegitimate-offspring-of-interspecies-crosses Borthudians have just such weapons already,” snorted Van Rijn. “Sulfur and acid! Do you think that four men can stand off twenty?”
“Mm-m-m…yes, I see your point,” agreed Firmage. “But look here, we can’t do anything about this without laying out some cash. I’m not sure offhand what our margin of profit is—”
“On the average, for all our combined Antarean voyages, about thirty per cent on each voyage,” said Van Rijn promptly.
Mjambo started. “How the devil do you get the figures for my company?”
Van Rijn grinned and drew on his cigar.
“That gives us a margin to use,” said Gornas-Kiew. “We can invest in fighting equipment to such an extent that our profit is less—though I agree that there must still be a final result in the black—for the duration of the emergency.”
“Ja,” said Van Rijn, “only I have just told you we have not the men available to handle such fighting equipment.”
“It’d be worth it,” said Mjambo viciously. “I’d take a fair-sized loss just to teach them a lesson.”
“No, no.” Van Rijn lifted a hand which, after forty years of offices, was still the broad muscular paw of a working spaceman. “Revenge and destruction are un-Christian thoughts. Also, they will not pay very well, since it is hard to sell anything to a corpse. The problem is to find some means within our resources which will make it unprofitable for Borthu to raid us. Not being stupid heads, they will then stop raiding and we can maybe later do business.”
“You’re a cold-blooded one,” said Firmage.
Van Rijn drooped his eyes and covered a shiver by pouring himself another glass. He had suddenly had an idea.
He let the others argue for a fruitless hour, then said: “Freemen, this gets us nowhere, nie? Perhaps we are not stimulated enough to think clear.”
“What would you suggest?” asked Mjambo wearily.
“Oh…an agreement. A pool, or prize, or reward for whoever solves this problem. For example, ten per cent of all the others’ Antarean profits for the next ten years.”
“Hoy there!” cried Firmage. “If I know you, you robber, you’ve just come up with the answer.”
“Oh, no, no, no. By good St. Dismas I swear it. I have some beginning thoughts, maybe, but I am only a poor rough old space walloper without the fine education all you Freemen had. I could so easy be wrong.”