our flight path.
“Later. Received clearance for takeoff suddenly, and the whole
flight was away in minutes. Didn’t delay in planetary orbit at all-
still not very healthy-so set course at once. Two ships reported
lost on the way up. Koriel is taking bets on how many ships from
our flight touch down on Luna. We’re flying inside a tight defense
screen but must stand out clearly on Lambian search radars. There’s
a bit about Koriel ifirting with one of the girls from a signals
unit-quite a character, this Koriel, wasn’t he . . . ? More
war news received en route. . . Now-this is the part I meant.” Hunt
found the entry with his finger.
“Day Eight. In Lunar orbit at last!” He laid the sheet down on the
table and looked from one linguist to the other. “In Lunar orbit at
last.’ Now, you tell me: Exactly how did that ship travel from
Minerva to our Moon in under two of our days? Either there is some
form of propulsion that UNSA ought to be finding out about, or
we’ve been very wrong about Lunarian technology all along. But it
doesn’t fit. If they could do that, they didn’t have any problem
about developing space flight; they were way ahead of us. But I
don’t believe it-everything says they had a problem.”
Maddson made a show of helplessness. He knew it was crazy. Hunt
looked inquiringly at Maddson’s assistant, who merely shrugged and
pulled a face.
“You’re sure he means Lunar orbit-our Moon?”
“We’re sure.” Maddson was sure.
“And there’s no doubt about the date he shipped out?” Hunt
persisted.
“The embarkation date is stamped in the pay book, and it checks
with the date of the entry that says he shipped out. And don’t
forget the wording on Day-where was it?-here, Day Seven. ‘Embarked
four hours ago as scheduled’- See, ‘as scheduled.’ No suggestion of
a change in timetable.”
“And how certain is the date he reached Luna?” asked Hunt.
“Well that’s a little more difficult. Just going by the dates of
the notes, they’re one Lunarian day apart, all right. Now, it’s
possible that he used a Minervan time scale on Minerva, but
switched to some local system when he got to Luna. If so, it’s a
big coincidence that they tally like they do, but”-he
shrugged-“it’s possible. The thing that bothers me about that idea,
though, is the absence of any entries between the ship-out date and
the arrival-at-Luna date. Charlie seems to have written his diary
regularly. If the voyage took months, like you’re saying it should
have, it looks funny to me that there’s nothing at all between
those dates. It’s not as if he’d have been short of free time.”
Hunt reflected for a few moments on these possibilities. Then he
said, “There’s worse to come. Let’s press on for now.” He picked up
the notes and resumed:
“Landed at last, five hours ago. (Expletive) what a mess! The
landscape below as we came in on the (approach run?) was glow-
ing red in places all around Seltar for miles. There were lakes of
molten rock, bright orange, some with walls of rocks plunging
straight into them where whole mountains ha1’e been blown away. The
base is covered deep in dust, and some of the surface installations
have been crushed by flying debris. The defenses are holding out,
but the outer perimeter is (torn to shreds?). Most
important-~unreadable] diameter dish of the Annihilator is intact
and it is operational. The last group of ships in our flight was
wiped out by an enemy strike coming in from deep space. Koriel has
been collecting on all sides.”
Hunt laid the paper down and looked at Maddson. “Don,” he said,
“how much have you been able to piece together about this
Annihilator thing?”
“It was a kind of superweapon. There was more information in some
of the other texts. Both sides had them, sited on Minerva itself
and, from what you’re reading right now, on Luna too.” He added as
an afterthought, “Maybe on other places as well.”
“Why on Luna? Any ideas?”
“Our guess is that the Cerians and the Lambians must have dcveloped