The Rings of Tantalus [Expendables 2] Read online

  The Rings of Tantalus

  [The Expendables 2]

  Richard Avery

  (Edmund Cooper)

  1975

  Fawcett Gold Medal

  Stage One ORBIT

  MEMORANDUM

  To: Secretary General, United Nations.

  From: Director, Extra-Solar Planets Evaluating and Normalising Department.

  Most Secret. For your eyes only.

  Subject: The Proving of Tantalus, 7th planet Alpha Leonis(Regulus), distance 56 light years.

  3rd March 2074 S.E.T.

  Para 1. You are already aware of increasing opposition from certain Third World countries to the ExPEND programme for investigating distant planets that may be suitable for colonisation. As you know, this opposition is based on the high cost of the robot probes used for initial investigation, and the far higher cost of following up preliminary investigation by committing a suitably equipped team of Expendables, in a faster-than-light vessel, to discover if human beings can survive on such a planet. Para 2. Despite the fact that the first project, the proving of Kratos, was brought to a successful conclusion, Third World opposition continues to intensify. You cannot fail, to have noticed that the most vociferous opponents are certain South American countries (notably Brazil and Argentina), certain Arab countries (notably Algeria, Libya and Egypt) together with three or four central African states and, of course, Indonesia.

  Para, 3. The success of the Kratos venture (ref. File One, Appendix One, ExPEND Report, December ‘73) demonstrates that the future of mankind need no longer be determined by the dwindling resources of the Solar System. A thriving and expanding colony now exists on Kratos. Latest information indicates that the population of Jamestown exceeds 2,500; 220 of its people being indigenously born. We shall continue to use matter transmission until the population has reached 10,000. This, I am assured by the geneticists, will provide a sufficiently varied genetic pool for Kratos to proceed independently with its own expansion. Naturally, the emigrants will be drawn from all terrestrial nations; and, in fact, a high proportion will come from Third World countries. Para 4. This, however, does not diminish opposition—as you are aware from the proceedings of the last session of the General Assembly. So long as such opposition is of a political and democratic nature, future ExPEND programmes are not at risk. Investigation, proving and colonisation will continue until U.N. decrees otherwise. Para 5. But an alarming new factor has developed. I have received a report from the C.I.A. of the United States of America (later confirmed by the External Security Department of the Soviet Union) that sabotage of ExPEND is now being actively encouraged by various clandestine organisations supported by funds from one or more of the countries mentioned in Para 2.

  Para 6. It has been suggested that ExPEND itself has been infiltrated by hostile elements, especially in the division concerned with the preliminary selection of suitable candidates for the proving teams. A discreet security check has already revealed that three members of the Selection Group obtained their position by assuming false identities.

  We are unable to trace the people whose identities were adopted by the infiltrators. They are presumed dead.

  Para-7. As these members of the Selection Group played a significant part in choosing the small group from which Commander James Conrad drew four new recruits to make up the team for Project Tantalus, it must be assumed that one or more saboteurs were included.

  Para 8.I need not remind you that, because of the hazardous nature of such operations, each team of Expendables is composed of talented and/or highly qualified social misfits, outcasts and criminals. This policy was decided upon because the dangers of planet proving are unknowable. At the same time such limitations make the introduction of possible saboteurs relatively easy. Para 9. The team assigned to the proving of Tantalus left the Solar system before I became aware of the possibility of sabotage. By now, their F.T.L. vessel, The Santa Maria (modified after the Kratos venture according to Commander Conrad’s requirements), should be in planetary orbit. A message has been despatched to Commander Conrad apprising him of the new situation. Para 10. Although five of the original Kratos team returned to the Solar System in good health (one was killed on Kratos, and one died later as a result of irreversible brain damage), Commander Conrad is now accompanied by only two of his former companions. By my authority, Fidel Batista and Chantana Le Gros were seconded for the training of future teams.

  Para 11. For your convenience I append a list of the present complement of the Santa Maria, together with relevant data.

  Para 12. In view of the information provided in this most secret memorandum, I humbly request that you use all the facilities of your high office to actively discourage opposition to and sabotage of the ExPEND programme as approved by U.N. Third World anxieties are understandable. It is true that the vast amounts of capital, technology and energy assigned for the development of extra-solar colonisation could be used to alleviate—if only temporarily —the condition of millions of starving people in Asia, Africa and South America. But the issue is not a short-term one. The ultimate issue is the survival of mankind. To ensure that, we need new worlds.

  APPENDIX I

  Complement of Santa Maria re proving of Planet Seven, Alpha Leonis.

  Conrad, James. Age 39. Commander Expendables, Team Two. Nationality, British. Ex-commander United Nations Space Service, formerly captain. Distinguished Space Service Cross and bar. Resigned from U.N.S.S. after being reduced to rank of commander and forfeiting ten years’ seniority as result of court-martial. Court martial findings (presided over by Admiral Kotuzov): guilty as charged in wilfully and repeatedly disobeying orders of commanding officer when permission to attempt rescue of crew of S.S. Einstein in decaying solar orbit was denied; not guilty of putting at risk safety of S.S. Garagin which he then commanded; guilty of bringing about the deaths of three of his crew members and one engineer officer in aforementioned attempted rescue. Conrad was himself badly injured—one arm severed by mooring cable, one eye burned out by solar radiation. Now has prosthetic right arm. Elected also to have infra-red eye implanted in vacant right socket, normally covered by silver patch.

  After successful proving of Kratos was awarded Grand Cross of Gagarin and offered restored rank of captain in U.N.S.S. Offer declined. Elected to remain Expendable.

  Smith, Indira, Age 31. Second-in-Command, Expendables, Team Two. Nationality, Indian. Ex-Surgeon Lieutenant, Terran Disaster Corps. Resigned commission as a result of torture and severe injuries by so-called guerillas in Brazil. Now has two prosthetic legs. Awarded Distinguished Space Service Cross for services rendered on Kratos.

  Kwango, Kurt. Age 34. Ecologist, Expendables, Team Two. Nationality, Nigerian. Previously convicted criminal with history of violence. Behaviour since recruitment by ExPEND irreproachable. Granted free pardon for crimes rendered on Kratos.

  Khelad, Ahmed. Age 27. Weapons and explosives expert, felon. Nationality, Syrian. Convicted by U.S. court for hijacking and murder at Kennedy International Airport. Volunteer Expendable. Released from prison under U.N. Mandate 31-B-9-72 and placed in custody of ExPEND for indefinite period.

  Pushkin, Alexei. Age 35. Engineer, felon. Nationality, Russian. Convicted by Soviet court of murder at Leningrad. Volunteer Expendable. Released from prison under U.N. Mandate 31-B-9-72 and placed in custody of EXPEND for indefinite period.

  Zonis, Ruth. Age 26. Biologist, felon. Nationality, Israeli. Convicted by Egyptian court of attempted theft at Cairo. Volunteer Expendable. Released from prison under U.N. Mandate 31-B-9-72 and placed in custody of EXPEND for indefinite period.

  Uhlmann, Lisa. Age 29. Chemist, felon. Nationality, American. Convicted by Me
xican court for kidnapping at

  Mexico City. Volunteer Expendable. Released from prison under U.N. Mandate 31-B-9-72 and placed in custody of ExPEND for indefinite period.

  APPENDIX II

  Records of Conrad, Smith, Kwango justify assumption of integrity. Khelad’s crime was political in nature. Pushkin’s crime was of personal nature. Zonis’s crime was political. Uhlmann’s crime was political. All three “politicals” are high risk possibilities reference sabotage. Commander Conrad is familiar with their dossiers.

  Phase One DEFROST

  The message had been received by sub-space radio before Conrad came out of suspended animation. Matthew had acknowledged it, as requested. Matthew was one of six self programming robots, type S.P.9. But Matthew was something special: he was S.P.9/1. He had command circuitry that could override the circuitry of the other five robots. For convenience, the robots were called Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter and Paul. Their names were painted on their chest plates and back plates. All except John and Paul had worked with Commander James Conrad on the proving of Kratos. The original John and Paul had been destroyed on Kratos—one had fallen down a deep shaft and the other had been flattened by a death worm. The replacements were identical. They even had the same memory patterns programmed into them. It was, so Conrad supposed, a kind of mechanical substitute for immortality.

  Because of the immense amount of energy needed for sub-space radio communication, the signal from Earth had been necessarily brief, as also had the reply.

  The message read: Possible saboteur in your team. Take necessary steps. Vital Tantalus project succeeds. Message ends. Signal receipt. Director, ExPEND.

  The reply read: Acknowledged S.P.9/1 p.p. Conrad.

  Conrad, still shaky from the trauma of emerging from suspended animation, contemplated this news as he sipped coffee on the navigation deck of the Santa Maria, now in a stable 2,000 kilometre orbit round Tantalus.

  A saboteur… Well, it was possible. Not probable, he thought, but possible. He had been on Terra after the Kratos mission long enough to catch up on domestic politics. He knew well enough that certain prominent people in certain countries had been very noisy about their objection to the ExPEND programme. He did not blame them. They were concerned with local problems— ever-increasing population, disease, protein shortage, the inexorable decrease of fertile land areas, the shortage of fossil fuels, famine, crime, revolution and all the ills that an over-populated planet is heir to. Yes their problems were local and immediate. They were too busy, too harassed, to concern themselves with the biggest problem of all—the long-term one of racial survival.

  Who could blame them if they screamed at the vast amounts of money, science, energy that were siphoned off into deep space exploration? The probing of Kratos had ensured, at least, that mankind’s ultimate fate need not be limited to the confines of the solar system. But what consolation was that to people who needed to catch votes in order to govern under steadily deteriorating conditions?

  Conrad glanced through the observation panel. The Santa Maria was passing over the sunside of Tantalus. It looked very beautiful—much as Earth looked from close orbit. The oceans were green, blue, iridescent. The three major continents were rich in vegetation. The enigmatic rings the probes had revealed were too small to be seen by the naked eye. Conrad’s instincts told him that he was going to have enough problems when the Santa Maria touched down on the surface of that deceptively tranquil planet, without having to worry about a possible saboteur. Or saboteurs… Now there was a nasty thought. What if it turned out that there was more than one?

  But why the devil should even the most rabid Third World politicos want to destroy a mission that was ultimately in their own interests and to which the money, energy, and know-how had already been committed? He got the answer almost immediately. It wasn’t just that they might wish to wreck the Tantalus project. That would gain them nothing. It had to be a gambit by which the whole ExPEND operation would be discredited. That way, the enormous funds involved could be rechanneled to meet some of the needs of the hungry nations.

  Yes, it made sense. Besides, ExPEND would not blast such a message across fifty-six light-years unless they believed there was a real threat. Conrad felt a tingle of fear on his spine. He had not been out of S.A. long, and he was still feeling weak and disoriented. As if, he thought bitterly, I don’t have enough bloody problems on my hands.

  At that moment, Matthew came onto the navigation deck.

  “Sir, Lieutenant Smith is approaching viability. Do you wish to be present when she returns to consciousness?”

  Conrad scratched his silver eye-patch, realised he was doing so, realised it was a stupid mannerism, and stopped it.

  “No. Get her operational as fast as you can, that’s all. Then pull Kwango out. Get him viable, also, as fast as you can. But don’t pull out the rest until further orders.”

  “Decision noted. Execution proceeds,” said Matthew imperturbably.

  “And, Matthew, have one of your minions bring me some more hot coffee. This stuff tastes like liquid crap.”

  “Query, sir. Please define the term liquid crap. The coffee was prepared by John according to programme specification number P-17-3904 and should be—”

  “Cancel statement,” snapped Conrad. “Get Smith and Kwango out fast, and send me some fresh coffee.”

  “Decision noted. Execution proceeds.” Matthew left the navigation deck.

  Conrad let out a great sigh. He was in an irritable mood and he knew it. He had been through it all before. The trauma of coming out of suspended animation was taking longer to wear off than he had anticipated. It was a pity you had to freeze people to transport them in star-ships by faster-than-light drive. But if you did not, the experience would make them mad. Oddly, F.T.L. didn’t affect robots. They just went into low alert and waited patiently.

  Conrad paced about nervously. Being a trained spaceman he had long ago become expert at walking on bond-fuzz carpeting in a field of zero gravity. He wondered if he should have accepted Matthew’s discreet suggestion that he should be present when Indira opened her eyes.

  He had been present when she woke up in the I.C. unit when the Santa Maria was orbiting Kratos. He could still remember vividly the way she screamed when she saw his silver patch and, for a few moments, did not recognise his face. He remembered also the way Matthew, wearing the thermal gloves, had pinched and stroked her small, pallid breasts, expertly bringing massage and heat close to the heart. And he remembered the thin lines indicating the joining of living thighs to prosthetic legs. He didn’t want to go through all that again. Matthew was expert in resuscitation techniques. Let him get on with the process.

  Conrad, being an honest man, knew very well why he did not wish to be present at Lieutenant Smith’s recall. He had lain between those prosthetic legs with much pleasure on Kratos and later in the North West Highlands of Scotland, when the Expendables had been granted leave after the success of the first mission.

  He did not want to see a sexless robot manipulating the body of someone he had held with love and passion.

  The robot John came to the navigation deck. “Coffee, sir, Sweet, black, eighty-five degrees centigrade.” He presented the plastic bulb to Conrad.

  Conrad took a squirt. It was better than the last half litre. In fact, it wasn’t bad at all.

  “You took your bloody time about it,” he said grudgingly.

  Query, sir,” said John. “Please define the term bloody time.”

  Conrad’s irritability escalated to anger. “You are a stupid, peripatetic conglomeration of electronic idiocy.” Then he sighed once more, and pulled himself together. “Cancel both statements.”

  “Decision noted,” said John impassively. “Execution proceeds. Statements one and two are now cancelled.”

  Conrad sipped his coffee and tried to condition himself to wait patiently for the emergence of Lieutenant Smith. Apart from the supposed or real threat of sabotage, there was plenty to think
about. How long should he allow the Santa Maria to remain in orbit. Where should touch-down be? Should he try to get as near to one of the enigmatic rings as possible, or should he prudently make the first touch-down at a respectable distance? How long should he allow for surface adaptation to a field of—78G?

  The moon of Tantalus drifted past the observation panel unnoticed. Presently, Conrad’s head began to ache. Presently, he summoned a robot and demanded a quarter litre bulb of brandy from general stores. Presently Matthew informed him that Lieutenant Smith was alive and well.

  Conrad’s headache had gone. Whether it was due to the brandy or to the news brought by Matthew he did not know.

  “How long will it take to get Kwango out?”

  “Approximately one hundred and sixty-five minutes, Commander.”

  “Get him out faster.”

  “Query. Is the situation designated as an emergency, sir?”

  “No, dammit. Don’t take any risks. I need Kwango all in one piece.” Then he added maliciously: “The last time you tried to raise him to room temperature, he was stone cold dead. Lieutenant Smith had to give him a heart transplant.”

  “I recall the incident, sir,” said Matthew, with, perhaps, a hint of reproach in his robotic voice. “The vessel was orbiting Kratos. Cardiac failure was not due to any fault in resuscitation techniques.”

  “I know that,” said Conrad. “Apparently, Kurt ducked his sub-thermal shock injection on Terra. So ice crystals formed and burst his heart when he was chilled. He learned his lesson. Just get him out as fast as you can. Execute.”

  “Decision noted, Commander. Execution proceeds.”