The Lost Kafoozalum Read online

this idea left at all? Howabout an interim summary?"

  Eru coughs to get a moment for thought, then says:

  "In brief, the problem is to provide a menace against which the twogroups will be forced to unite. It must have certain characteristics.

  "It must be sufficiently far off in time for the threat to lastseveral years, long enough to force them into a real combination.

  "It must obviously be a plausible danger and they must get to know ofit in a plausible manner. Invasion from outside is the only threat sofar suggested.

  "It must be a limited threat. That is, it must appear to come from onewell-defined group. The rest of the Universe should appear benevolentor neutral."

  He just stops, rather as though there is something else to come; whilethe rest of us are waiting B sticks her oar in to the followingeffect.

  "Yes, but look, suppose this goes wrong; it's all very well to makeplans but suppose we get some of Kirsty's side-effects just the same,well what I mean is suppose it makes the mess worse instead of betterwe want some way we can sort of switch it off again.

  "Look this is just an illustration, but suppose the Menace waspirates, if it went wrong we could have an Earth ship make officialcontact and they could just happen to say By the way have you seenanything of some pirates, Earth fleet wiped them up in this sectorabout six months ago.

  "That would mean the whole crew conniving, so it won't do, but yousee what I mean."

  There is a bit of silence, then Aro says, "I think we should startfresh. We have had criticisms of Lizzie's suggestion, which was notperhaps wholly serious, and as Dilly says there is little of it left,except the idea of a threat of invasion. The idea of an alienintelligent race has objections and would be very difficult to fake.The invaders must be men from another planet. Another unknown one. Buthow do the people of Incognita come to know that they exist?"

  More silence, then I hear my own voice speaking although it was myintention to keep quiet for once: it sounds kind of creaky and itsays: "A ship. A crashed ship from Outside."

  Whereupon another voice says, "Really! Am I expected to swallow this?"

  * * * * *

  We had just about forgotten the colonel, not to mention Mr. Yardo whocontributes another "Ha! Ha!" so this reminder comes as a slightshock, nor do we see what he is talking about but this he proceeds toexplain.

  "I don't know why M'Clare thought it necessary to stage thisdiscussion. I am already acquainted with his plan and have had ordersto co-operate. I have expressed my opinion on using undergraduates ina job like this and have been overruled. If he, or you, imagine thatpriming you to bring out his ideas like this is going to reconcile meto the whole business you are mistaken. He might have chosen a moresuitable mouthpiece than that child with the curly hair--"

  Here everybody wishes to reply at once; the resulting jam produces amoment of silence and I get in first.

  "As for curly hair I am rising twenty-four and I was only saying whatwe all thought, if we have the same ideas as M'Clare that is becausehe taught us for four years. How else would you set about it anyway?"

  My fellow students pick up their stylers and tap solemnly three timeson the table; this is the Russett equivalent of "Hear! Hear!" and thecolonel is surprised.

  Eru says coldly, "This discussion has not been rehearsed. As Lizzie ... asMiss Lee says, we have been working and thinking together for four yearsand have been taught by the same people."

  "Very well," says Delano-Smith testily. "Tell me this, please: Do youregard this idea as practicable?"

  Cray tilts his chair back and remarks to the ceiling, "This is rathera farce. I suppose we had to go through our paces for the colonel'sbenefit--and Mr. Yardo's of course--but can't we be briefed properlynow?"

  "What do you mean by that?" snaps the colonel.

  "It's been obvious right along," says Cray, balancing his styler onone forefinger, "so obvious none of us has bothered to mention it,that accepting the normal limitations of Mass-Time, the idea ofinterfering in Incognita was doomed before it began. No conventionalship would have much hope of arriving before war broke out; and if itdid arrive it couldn't do anything effective. Therefore I assume thatthis is not a conventional ship. I might accept that the Governmenthas sent us out in a futile attempt to do the impossible, but Iwouldn't believe that of M'Clare."

  Cray is the only Terry I know acts like an Outsider's idea of one;many find this difficult to take and the colonel is plainly one ofthem. Eru intervenes quickly.

  "I imagine we all realized that. Anyway this ship is obviously not aconventional model. If you accept the usual Mass-Time relationshipbetween the rate of transition and the fifth power of the apparentacceleration, we must have reached about four times the maximumalready."

  "Ram!" says B suddenly, "What did you do to stop the Hotel scoperegistering the little ship you picked up me and Lizzie in?"

  Everybody cuts in with something they have noticed about thecapabilities of this ship or the hoppers, and Lenny starts hammeringon the table and chanting! "Brief! Brief! Brief!" and others are juststarting to join in when Eru bangs on the table and glares us alldown.

  Having got silence, he says very quietly, "Colonel Delano-Smith, Idoubt whether this discussion can usefully proceed without a good dealmore information; will you take over?"

  The colonel looks round at all the eager earnest interested mapshastily put on for his benefit and decides to take the plunge.

  "Very well. I suppose it is ... very well. The decision to usestudents from Russett was made at a very high level, and I suppose--"Instead of saying "Very well" again he shrugs his shoulders and getsdown to it.

  "The report from the planet we decided to call 'Incognita' wasreceived thirty-one days ago. The Department of Spatial Affairs hascertain resources which are not generally known. This ship is one ofthem. She works on a modified version of Mass-Time which enables herto use about a thousand channels instead of the normal limit of twohundred; for good and sufficient reasons this has not been generallyreleased."

  Pause while we are silently dared to doubt the Virtue and sufficiencyof these reasons which personally I do not.

  "To travel to Incognita direct would take about fifteen days by theshortest route. We shall take eighteen days as we shall have to make adetour."

  But presumably we shall take only fifteen days back. Hurrah we canspend a week round the planet and still be back in time forCommemoration. We shall skip maybe a million awkward questions and Ishall not disappoint Dad.

  It is plain the colonel is not filled with joy; far from it, he didnot enjoy revealing a Departmental secret however obvious, but helikes the next item even less.

  "We shall detour to an uninhabited system twelve days' transit timefrom here and make contact with another ship, the _Gilgamesh_."

  * * * * *

  At which Lennie DiMaggio who has been silent till now brings his fistdown on the table and exclaims, "You _can't_!"

  Lennie is much upset for some reason; Delano-Smith gives him apeculiar look and says what does he know about it? and Lennie startsto stutter.

  Cray remarks that Lennie's childhood hobby appears to have beenspaceships and he suffers from arrested development.

  B says it is well known Lennie is mad about the Space Force and whynot? It seems to have uses Go on and tell us Lennie.

  Lennie says "_G-Gilgamesh_ was lost three hundred years ago!"

  "The flaw in that statement," says Cray after a pause, "is that thismay be another ship of the same name."

  "No," says the colonel. "Explorer Class cruiser. They went out ofservice two hundred eighty years back."

  The Space Force, I remember, does not re-use names of lost ships: somesays Very Proper Feeling some say Superstitious Rot.

  B says, "When was she found again?"

  Lennie says it was j-just thirty-seven revolutions of his nativeplanet which means f-f-fifty-three Terrestrial years ago, she wasfound by an Interplanetary scout c
alled _Crusoe_.

  Judging by the colonel's expression this data is Classified; he doesnot know that Lennie's family come from one of the oldest settledplanets and are space-goers to a man, woman, and juvenile; they pickup ship gossip the way others hear about the relations of people nextdoor.

  Lennie goes on to say that the Explorer Class were the first officialexploration ships sent out from Earth when the Terries decided to findout what happened to the colonies formed during the Exodus._Gilgamesh_ was the first to re-make contact with Garuda, Legba,Lister, Cor-bis and Antelope; she vanished on her third voyage.

  "Where was she found?" asks Eru.

  "Near the p-p-pole of an uninhabited planet--maybe I shouldn't saywhere