Destination: Saturn

XVIII

During this harrowing interview, the elusive planetoid had appeared and disappeared about sixteen times—each time in a widely different area of space, and each time the advance squadron had plunged after it, since they had not received a message countermanding Grauschmitz’s previous order. Such was the effect of Glorious Imperial Naval Discipline, they would gladly have continued darting about space like a flock of maddened sparrows after a succulent but infuriatingly evasive June-bug until the inevitable energy-death of the physical Universe, unless receiving orders to the contrary.

Desperation written all over his protoplasm, and showing in the tension of his straining voice, Supreme Commander Grauschmitz craned his eye-stalks to the view-plates once again.

“Come, come, men! Cheer up! We have not failed yet—we have only, uh, less than succeeded!” he said heartily.

“Aye, aye, sir,” the crew-members mumbled.

“Captain—I mean Lieutenant Blatzheim—let us sum up the situation, eh?”

“Aye.”

“Now: the planetoid-ship is somehow eluding the finest tracking radar systems known to glorious Saturnian science, right?”

“Right, sir… but that simply cannot be true, for, as you yourself said only moments ago, Saturnian science is the finest and most advanced science known in the, uh, known Universe. Sir.”

“Very good; quite true; yes, yes. And what, Blatzheim,” the Commander inquired encouragingly, “do you deduce from that fact—lowly swine and mere Lieutenant that you are?”

Lieutenant Blatzheim revolved his eye-stalks thoughtfully for a moment, while the other crew-members goggled at him in suspense.

“Well…”

“Yes, yes? Speak up, lad? Come—come!” the Commander urged in a fatherly, indulgent tone.

“Well… sir … from this fact, I deduce that the deviationist-reactionary-anti-Imperial planetoid-ship can not be actually protected in a superior manner against the finest instruments of our glorious Saturnian science… can not be, in point of fact, really slipping in and out of subspace (or hyperspace, as the case may be), since these techniques are unknown to our glorious beloved Saturnian science! Hence it is only a trick—an illusion!” Lieutenant Blatzheim babbled in one breathless rush of words.

The Commander beamed, or would have beamed, that is, if he were not just a featureless blop of translucent jelly.

“Good work! Very good work, Lieutenant… oh, by the way, remind me to promote you to Captain on the next roster, will you! Now—in other words, the Ajaxian ship is using some clever-but-fundamentally-politically-decadent scientific trick to merely seem to be eluding us. Hence, by the rigorous laws of Imperial Saturnian Logic…”

“Hail, the rigorous laws of Imp—”

“Silence, Dogs! You are breaking my train of thought… hence, by pure logic, the Ajaxian vessel is not really eluding us at all,” the Commander summed up the matter complacently, “but is right there before us and has been all this time!”

The crew-members marveled at this triumph of logic. The Commander basked for a moment in the warming glow of their humble admiration, lowly swine though they were.

“Now, then, lads,” he said briskly, in his best Glorious Naval Tradition style, “all we have to do is englobe the immediate area of space, driving slowly inward all the time in a shrinking sphere, laser-cannon blasting way, and, of course, ignoring whatever manufactured illusory tricks and hallucinations the Ajaxian vessel may project… until we have the reactionary pigs hopelessly trapped, whereupon…” His voice died to a gloating whisper.

“Whereupon, sir?…” the crew-members whispered.

“Whereupon we sizzle the swine and triumphantly carry home to the Sacred Soil of Our Beloved Motherland the planetoid’s scientific treasures!” he yapped, victory ringing in his exultant tones.

“Hail the Sacred Soil of Our Beloved Motherland, hail!” the assembled crew-members chorused, ending with a rousing cheer for “Good Old Supreme Commander Grauschmitz, our Fearless Leader” (led by soon-to-be-Captain Blatzheim, or, at least, his voice was the loudest).

The Commander chuckled paternally.

“Ah, now, thank you lads! Ahem! Captain Blatzheim, remind me to promote you to Major on the roster-after-next, will you?”

“Certainly, fearless leader, sir,” Blatzheim fawned, flushing even more scarlet than earlier.

Within moments the flagship’s radio operator, “Sparks” von Hohenzollern, contacted the advance squadron which was still zig-zagging blindly about in close pursuit of the planetoid-ship, which had been popping in and out of sight with alarming frequency. Sparks commanded them to assemble for englobement, which they were very happy to do, as the past twenty minutes of futile zig-zagging had not only jolted the crewmen so ferociously as to result in nineteen cases of sprained pseudopod and three black-eye-stalks (from collisions with unpadded machinery), but also nine ships had cracked up, exploded, losing all hands. A pity, of course, but after all this was War!

As the patrol force assembled for englobement, Supreme Commander Grauschmitz watched proudly as his boys snapped into formation with the sort of verve and zest one naturally expected from His Imperial Majesty’s Loyal Crack Troops… it touched an old officer straight to the nucleus to see such precision, such dedication, and he felt like a father to his men, not just a commanding officer! Roseate visions of the titles, honors, promotions, and medals that would be his after the successful completion of this operation swam before his eye-stalks…

He gave the word.

Lasers flaming, the gigantic sphere of warships closed in on the helpless planetoid-ship, where the loyal Wuj alone defended the realm of Ajax against the armed might of the Saturnian Interplanetary Empire…