Clayton and Schweikert had both. They started early enough, worked hard enough, and had enough stuff, to earn both. Thus it came about that when, upon a scheduled day, the two admirals came to Bennett together, they were greeted as enthusiastically as though they had been Bennettans born and bred; and their welcome became a planet-wide celebration when Clayton issued the orders which all Bennett had been waiting so long and so impatiently to hear. Bennettans were at last to leave Bennett!
Group after group, sub-fleet after sub-fleet, the component units of the Galactic Patrol’s Grand Fleet took off. They assembled in space; they maneuvered enough to shake themselves down into some semblance of unity; they practiced the new maneuvers; they blasted off in formation for Sol. And as the tremendous armada neared the Solar System it met—or, rather, was joined by—the Patrol ships about which Morgan and his minions already knew; each of which fitted itself into its long-assigned place. Every planet of Civilization had sent its every vessel capable of putting out a screen or of throwing a beam, but so immense was the number of warships in Grand Fleet that this increment, great as it intrinsically was, made no perceptible difference in its size.
On Rally Day Grand Fleet lay poised near Earth. As soon as he had introduced Samms to the intensely interested listeners at the Rally, Roderick Kinnison disappeared. Actually, he drove a bug to a distant corner of the spaceport and left the Earth in a light cruiser, but to all intents and purposes, so engrossed was everyone in what Samms was saying, Kinnison simply vanished. Samms was already in the Boise; the Port Admiral went out to his old flagship, the Chicago. Nor, in case any observer of the Enemy should be trying to keep track of him, could his course be traced. Cleveland and Northrop and Rularion and all they needed of the vast resources of the Patrol saw to that.
Neither Samms nor Kinnison had any business being with Grand Fleet in person, of course, and both knew it; but everyone knew why they were there and were glad that the two top Lensmen had decided to live or die with their Fleet. If Grand Fleet won, they would probably live; if Grand Fleet lost they would certainly die—if not in the pyrotechnic dissolution of their ships, then in a matter of days upon the ground. With the Fleet their presence would contribute markedly to morale. It was a chance very much worth taking.
Nor were Clayton and Schweikert together, or even near each other. Samms, Kinnison, and the two admirals were as far away from each other as they could, get and still remain in Grand Fleet’s fighting .cylinder.
Cylinder? Yes. The Patrol’s Board of Strategy, assuming that the enemy would attack in conventional cone formation and knowing that one cone could defeat another only after a long and costly engagement, bad long since spent months and months at war-games in their tactical tanks, in search of a better formation. They had found it. Theoretically, a cylinder of proper composition could defeat, with negligible loss and in a very short time, the best cones they were able to devise. The drawback was that the ships composing a theoretically efficient cylinder would have to be highly specialized and vastly greater in number than any one power had ever been able to put into the ether. However, with all the resources of Bennett devoted to construction, this difficulty would not be insuperable.
This, of course, brought up the question of what would happen if cylinder met cylinder—if the Black strategists should also have arrived at the same solution—and this question remained unanswered. Or, rather, there were too many answers, no two of which agreed; like those to the classical one of what would happen if an irresistible force should strike an immovable object. There would be a lot of intensely interesting by-products!
Even Rularion of Jove did not come up with a definite solution. Nor did Bergenholm; who, although a comparatively obscure young Lensman-scientist—and not a member of the Galactic Council, was frequently called into consultation because of his unique ability to arrive at correct conclusions via some obscurely short-circuiting process of thought.
“Well,” Port Admiral Kinnison had concluded, finally, “If they’ve got one, too, we’ll just have to shorten ours up, widen it out, and pray.”
“Clayton to Port Admiral Kinnison,” came a communication through channels.
“Have you any additional orders or instructions?”
“Kinnison to Admiral Clayton. None,” the Port Admiral replied, as formally, then went on via Lens: “No comment or criticism to make, Alex. You fellows have done a job so far and you’ll keep on doing one. How much detection have you got out?”
“Twelve detets—three globes of diesels. If we sit here and do nothing the boys will get edgy and go stale, so if you and Virge agree we’ll give ‘em some practice. Lord knows they need it, and it’ll keep ‘em on their toes. But about the Blacks—they may be figuring on delaying any action until we’ve had time to crack from boredom. What’s your idea on that?”
“I’ve been worried about the same thing. Practice will help, but whether enough or not I don’t know. What do you think, Virge? Will they hold it up deliberately or strike fast?”
“Fast,” the First Lensman replied, promptly and definitely. “As soon as they possibly can, for several reasons. They don’t know our real strength, any more than we know theirs. They undoubtedly believe, however, the same. as we do, that they are more efficient than we are and have the larger force. By their own need of practice they will know ours. They do not attach nearly as much importance to morale as we do; by the very nature of their regime they can’t. Also, our open challenge will tend very definitely to force their hands, since face-saving is even more important to them than it is to us. They will strike as soon as they can and as hard as they can.”
Grand Fleet maneuvers were begun, but in a day or so the alarms came blasting in. The enemy had been detected; coming in, as the previous Black Fleet had come, from the direction of Coma Berenices. Calculating machines clicked and whirred; orders were flashed, and a brief string of numbers; ships by the hundred and the thousands flashed into their assigned positions.
Or, more precisely, almost into them. Most of the navigators and pilots had not had enough practice yet to hit their assigned positions exactly on the first try, since a radical change in axial direction was involved, but they did pretty well; a few minutes of juggling and jockeying were enough. Clayton and Schweikert used a little caustic language—via Lens and to their fellow Lensmen only, of course—but Samms and Kinnison were well enough pleased. The time of formation had been very satisfactorily short and the cone was smooth, symmetrical, and of beautifully uniform density.
The preliminary formation was a cone, not a cylinder. It was not a conventional Cone of Battle in that it was not of standard composition, was too big, and had altogether too many ships for its size. It was, however, of the conventional shape, and it was believed that by the time the enemy could perceive any significant differences it would be too late for him to do anything about it. The cylinder would be forming about that time, anyway, and it was almost believed—at least it was strongly hoped—that the enemy would not have the time or the knowledge or the equipment to do anything about that, either.
Kinnison grinned to himself as his mind, en rapport with Clayton’s, watched the enemy’s Cone of Battle enlarge upon the Admiral’s conning plate. It was big, and powerful; the Galactic Patrol’s publicly-known forces would have stood exactly the chance of the proverbial snowball in the nether regions. It was not, however, the Port Admiral thought, big enough to form an efficient cylinder, or to handle the Patrol’s real force in any fashion—and unless they shifted within the next second or two it would be too late for the enemy to do anything at all.
As though by magic about ninety five percent of the Patrol’s tremendous cone changed into a tightly-packed double cylinder. This maneuver was much simpler than the previous one, and had been practiced to perfection. The mouth of the cone closed in and lengthened; the closed end opened out and shortened. Tractors and pressors leaped from ship to ship, binding the whole myriad of hitherto discrete units into a single structure as solid, even comparatively as to size, as a cantilever bridge. And instead of remaining quiescent, waiting to be attacked, the cylinder flashed forward, inertialess, at maximum blast.
Throughout the years the violence, intensity, and sheer brute power of offensive weapons had increased steadily. Defensive armament had kept step. One fundamental fact, however, had not changed throughout the ages and has not changed yet. Three or more units of given power have always been able to conquer one unit of the same power, if engagement could be forced and no assistance could be given; and two units could practically always do so. Fundamentally, therefore, strategy always has been and still is the development of new artifices and techniques by virtue of which two or more of our units may attack one of theirs; the while affording the minimum of opportunity for them to retaliate in kind.