The Planet Killers

Chapter I

Roy Gardner paused for a moment outside Security Chief Karnes’ office, making sure his uniform was straight. Karnes had sent for him with only an hour’s notice. That was fairly little time to get spruced up for an audience with your superior officer.

Besides which, Gardner had no idea why he was wanted. You never did, when you worked for Security. They sent you a message, or they buzzed you on the phone and said, “Karnes wants to see you,” and you hopped to it. Security Chief Karnes was not a man who enjoyed being kept waiting.

Gardner stepped into the scanning field outside Karnes’ office. The green glow bathed him for a moment, simultaneously checking his face against the master files and examining him for concealed weapons. Then the door rolled silently back.

Security Chief Karnes sat in the curve of a kidney-shaped desk, smiling pleasantly. He was a man still in his prime, no more than fifty-five. He had held his dreaded post as Chief of the Terran Security Service for fifteen years, and probably would hold it for three decades yet to come. Karnes was thin-faced and youthful-looking, with a bristly crop of copper-colored hair, and black eyes like little marbles.

“Come in, Roy,” he said with warmth.

Gardner stood stiffly at attention in front of Karnes’ desk. A quick gesture from Karnes relaxed his posture. Karnes did not insist on strict military bearing, provided nobody took it upon himself to deviate from the rules until receiving the Chief’s permission.

“Sit down, Roy. I hate to have a man stand like a ramrod while I’m trying to talk to him.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Gardner lowered himself into a webchair to the left of Karnes’ desk. The Security Chief riffled through some sheets of paper, found the one he wanted, and swung round to face Gardner.

“Roy, how much do you know about the planet named Lurion?”

“Very little, sir,” Gardner admitted. It didn’t pay to bluff knowledge with the Chief. “It’s the fourth world of the Betelgeuse system, isn’t it? Inhabited by humanoids. That’s about all I can tell you, sir.”

Karnes nodded. “The galaxy is full of worlds. You aren’t expected to know everyone of them in detail. And you’ve given the essential information here. However, there’s one additional fact about Lurion that you ought to know; and that’s why you’re here.” Karnes tapped the sheet of paper in his hand. “We’ve been studying Lurion very closely. We’ve run some probability checks with the master computer. In sixty-seven years, plus or minus eight months,” Karnes said, frowning heavily, “Lurion will launch an all-out war against the Solar System. During this war, Earth will be totally destroyed and heavy losses will be inflicted on Mars, Venus, and the other planets of this system.”

Gardner started. “Earth… destroyed?’

“So the computer says.”

“That’s a nasty idea, the destruction of Earth. If the machine’s telling the truth, that is.”

“Truth? Truth is a concept that has meaning only when you talk about time past, and sometimes not even then. We’re talking about the future. The computer says the attack will happen—if we allow it to take place. Do you think we dare risk it?”

“Oh,” Gardner said softly. He leaned back in the firm webchair, watching Karnes very carefully. Around him, the computer system of Earth Central clicked and murmured. A bright bank of cryotronic tubes glared at Gardner from the wall.

Gardner crossed one uniformed leg over the other and waited. It didn’t take a million-cryotron calculator to guess what Karnes was aiming at, but Gardner had long since learned to let Earth’s Chief of Security have his own way in presenting a situation.

Karnes rubbed his cheekbones, a gesture that accented his gaunt angularity. He said, “According to the best figures we have, there are some three billion people living on Lurion.”

“Half Earth’s current population,” Gardner said.

Karnes smiled coldly. “Ah, yes. Now, you realize that among Lurion’s three billion people there are some who will be the parents of those who will aid in Earth’s destruction sixty-seven years from now. The seeds of the conflict have already been planted. Probability says that if we sit back and do nothing, we will be destroyed. Therefore, naturally, we’ll have to take preventive measures against Lurion.”

Sweat started to roll down Gardner’s face. “What sort of preventive measures are planned, sir?”

“Total destruction of Lurion, of course.”

Gardner had seen it coming almost from the beginning of the conversation, but still the naked bluntness of the statement rocked him.

He studied his superior closely. Karnes didn’t look much like the sort of man who could order the death of a planet, Gardner thought. Karnes didn’t seem to have the necessary inner hardness, despite the precise angularity of his face and bearing. But you could never tell about people, it seemed.

Besides, Karnes wouldn’t have to do the job himself; it was merely his decision to make. He would aim the gun, but someone else would have to pull the trigger.

Gardner said, “And suppose the computer is wrong?”

Karnes shrugged. “Worlds have died unjustly before, you know. The universe is unsentimental. A minor readjustment in the metabolism of a solar furnace, a flare of energy, and a totally innocent world dies.”

“Of novas, yes. Natural causes. But this is entirely different. It’s murder, isn’t it?”

“In self-defense.”

“Self-defense before a hostile blow has been struck?” Gardner asked.

Karnes looked displeased. “Thanks to modern computer science, it’s no longer necessary to wait for the first blow to be struck. But you’re forcing me to rationalize, Roy, and I don’t want to have to do that. Let me make the situation absolutely clear: we will never know if the computer was wrong. If we destroy Lurion, there will be no war two generations hence. Therefore, we’ll have to assume for the sake of our souls that the computer is telling us the truth.”

“A tremendous assumption.”

“I know that,” Karnes said.

The Security Chief sighed. For a moment his professional guard was down, and Gardner saw beyond the mask to the inner man, burdened with guilt for the dreadful deed he had resolved to do. Pulling the trigger, Gardner thought, was perhaps not the worst of it. The man who aimed, who chose the victim, perhaps had more to justify to his soul.

“So Lurion will be destroyed.”

“Lurion must be destroyed; otherwise Earth will be. We can’t consider any alternatives to that set of statements. Either them or us, and we have to pray that we’re more worthy of surviving than they are. From what I know of Lurion,” Karnes said, “I think we are.” He smiled grimly. “All right. By now you know why I’ve called you in here. You’ve been picked for the job.”

Gardner said nothing. He stared at thé thick red carpeting on the floor of the Chiefs office.

Karnes added, “I might as well tell you that I dorft think you’re the man for the job; the computer does, though.”

Coming so quickly, the snapper nearly threw Gardner.

“Sir?”

“I didn’t think you could handle it,” Kames said. “You think too much. You’re liable to get bogged down in conceptual syllogisms when an ethical choice is handed to you. But on the other hand, you’re capable and you know how to handle yourself. I thought that your intellectual side would weigh down your active side and make you worthless for this job. But I fed your tape to the machine anyway. The machine says you’re the best man we have. Well, I defer to its judgment.”

Gardner blinked. He knew he was on the spot. He could beg off, on moral and ethical grounds, but that would accomplish nothing but the shattering of his career, Lurion had to be destroyed, in the opinion of Security Chief Karnes, and Lurion would be destroyed—if not by Gardner then by someone else.

He examined himself, wondering if he actually could do the job. He decided that he could if he sincerely felt that the future of Earth depended on it. So the computer was right, and Karnes wrong.

God help me, Gardner thought.

Out loud he said hoarsely, “All right. I accept the assignment.”

“Thanks, Gardner.”

“No thanks necessary, sir. You’re asking me to do a job. I’ll do it. Let it end there.”

“As you wish.”

Glowering across the desk at the Security Chief, Gardner asked, “How’s it going to be done, and when do I leave?”

“You’ll be in charge of a team of five,” Karnes said. “You’ll leave practically at once. Come with me and I’ll see that you get briefed on the full picture.”

In an office somewhere in the depths of the Security building, they gave Gardner the details of the project. The planet would be destroyed by a resonating circuit. It needed five separate co-ordinates. When all five co-ordinates meshed, that would be the end of Lurion.

“We ought to tell you, I guess, that there’s already been one unsuccessful attempt at the job,” Karnes said. “You represent our second try.”

“What happened to the first team?”

Karnes frowned. “We sent them out to Lurion six months ago. They were carefully-chosen, hand-picked men, of course. Only three out of the five even managed to get to Lurion alive. One man got waylaid by pirates even before he could get out of the Solar System. Another one made a slight miscalculation of his orbit. He piloted his ship square into Betelgeuse.”

“And the other three?” Gardner asked.

“They didn’t do too well either,” said Karnes. “The leader of the group was a man named Davis. He developed an addiction to khall.”

“Which is?”

“Lurioni vegetable-mash wine. I’ve tasted some. It’s potent stuff. Chalk Davis off. Then the second man contracted a Lurioni disease, went to hospital, and either died or was murdered there. We never got the full story. As for the final man of the team, he got there safely, established himself, and is waiting now for replacements. He can’t do the job alone. His name, by the way, is Jolland Smee. He’ll be your contact when you get there.”

“One man out of five. That isn’t a very good score, is it?”

“We had hoped for a better one.”

“How many teams will have to be sent out before a full complement of men reaches Lurion?”

Karnes pursed his lips together. “We try to profit by past mistakes. We hope that all four of the men we’re sending this time will make it.”

Gardner nodded. The fate of Davis interested him. Why, Gardner wondered, should a presumably sober, serious-minded Security man abruptly turn into a wino the moment he made planetfall on Lurion? An unbearable attack of conscience, maybe? That was the answer that suggested itself to Gardner, and he didn’t like it one bit.

A subaltern presented Gardner with a metal band that fit round his wrist.

“Your indicator,” Karnes said. “An ingenious bit of microminiaturization. There’s a microscopic electroencephalograph tucked inside there, tuned to five particular mental wavelengths.”

Gardner studied it. There were five little colored panels, unlit and quiescent.

“Your color is white,” Karnes said. “The moment you land on Lurion, that white panel will light up. The red panel will light, too. It’s the color of Jolland Smee. The other three panels will light up, one by one, as the other members of your team arrive.”

Gardner nodded. The wristband looked innocuous, just a bit of ornament, dull and dark now. But when all of its five panels were lit, a world wquld be doomed.

The room darkened. A screen was lowered in front. A projector hummed.

“These are the other members of your team,” Karnes said. “Study their faces carefully.”

The first face was that of Deever Weegan. His color on the indicator band was green. Weegan looked hard-eyed, fleshless, a man of stoic reserve and forbearance. His face wore a grim, mirthless smile.

“After you’ve seen their faces,” Kames said, “we’ll let you look at their psych-files and hear records of their voices. You’ll have to be able to recognize these men with your eyes closed if necessary.”

Jolland Smee was shown next. He was about forty and balding, but his face reflected a wiry toughness that did plenty to explain why he had been able to survive when the other four members of his team hadn’t.

Kully Leopold was flashed on the screen after Smee. Leopold was a round-faced, round-eyed littie man with a short, stiff red beard and twinkling eyes. He was the sort of deceptively mild-looking person that Security liked to save for the most ruthless of missions. His color on the indicator was blue.

Damon Archer completed the quintet. Yellow was his color on the indicator, but his color as a person, Gardner thought from a first look, was probably a sort of bland gray. Archer’s face showed no outstanding characteristics, no peaks on the graph at all. It was the sort of face that could be forgotten in a moment.

Well, Gardner thought, Karnes probably knows what he’s doing, or else the computer does. Archer probably had an overall competence that made up for his lack of specialties. A man who could easily be forgotten had an enormous asset on such an assignment.

“There’s your team,” Karnes said. “You’re in charge of them.”

“Why not Smee? He’s there already.”

“You’re in charge,” Karnes repeated. “If I wanted Smee to be the leader, I would have chosen him.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“The next step will be to brief you on the personalities of your colleagues. After that, we’ll have some final instructions for you. Will you be able to leave for Lurion by tomorrow night?”

A Security agent is always at his chief’s disposal. Gardner took care that there were never any entangling circumstances. “I’ll be ready, sir.”

“You have until tomorrow night, then, to think all this through and have all your second and third and fourth thoughts. We’re not forcing you to take on this assignment, Gardner.”

“I understand, sir.”

“You can back out any time you want until tomorrow night. Once you blast off for Lurion, though, you’ll be committing high treason against Earth if you. decide to change your mind.”

Gardner moistened his lips. “I think I’ll be going through with it, sir.”

The briefing continued. Gardner hunched forward, committing everything that was said to memory. His life and the life of his planet would depend on how well he did his job.

Five men to destroy a world. Gardner wondered whether this mission would meet the fate of its predecessor.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Well, Earth had sixty-seven years to get the job done. Any number of teams could be sent out in that time. And there still would be time, in all those sixty-seven years. If the computer were right, Gardner thought.

But that was a very big if.