space-ifight technology further than we thought,” Maddson said.
“Perhaps both sides had selected Earth as their target destination
for the big move, and they both sent advance parties to Luna to set
up a bridgehead and. . . protect the investment.”
“Why not on Earth itself, then?”
“I dunno.”
“Let’s stick with it for now, anyway,” Hunt said. “How much do we
know about what these Annihilators were?”
“From the description dish, apparently it was some kind of
radiation projector. From other clues, they fired a high-energy
photon beam probably produced by intense matter-antimatter
reaction. If so, the term Annihilator is particularly apt; it
carries a double meaning.”
“Okay.” Hunt nodded. “That’s what I thought. Now it goes silly.” He
consulted his notes. “Day Nine they were getting organized and
repairing battle damage. What about Day Ten, then, eh?” He resumed
reading:
“Day Ten. Annihilator used for the first time today. Three
fifteen-minute blasts aimed at Calvares, Paneris, and Sellidorn.
Now, they’re all Lambian cities, right?
“So they have this Annihilator emplacement, sitting on our Moon,
happily picking off cities on the surface of Minerva?”
“Looks like it,” Maddson agreed. He didn’t look very happy. “Well,
I don’t believe it,” Hunt declared firmly. “I don’t believe they
had the ability to register a weapon that accurately over that
distance, and even if they could, I don’t believe they could have
held the beam narrow enough not to have burned up the whole planet.
And I don’t believe the power density at that range could have been
high enough to do any damage at all.” He looked at Maddson
imploringly. “Christ, if they had technology like that, they
wouldn’t have been trying to perfect interplanetary travel- they’d
have been all over the bloody Galaxy!”
Maddson gestured wide with his arms. “I just translate what the
words tell me. You figure it out.”
“It goes completely daft in a minute,” Hunt warned. “Where was I,
now. . . ?”
He continued to read aloud, describing the duel that developed
between the Cerian Annihilator at Seltar and the last surviving
Lambian emplacement on Minerva. With a weapon firing from far out
in space and commanding the whole Minervan surface, the Cerians
held the key that would decide the war. Destroying it was obviously
the first priority of the Lambian forces and the prime objective of
their own Annihilator on Minerva. The Annihilators required about
one hour to recharge between firings, and Charlie’s notes conveyed
vividly the tension that built up in Seltar as they waited, knowing
that an incoming blast could arrive at any second. All around
Seltar the battle was building up to a frenzy as Lambian ground and
space-borne forces hurled everything into knocking out Seltar
before it could score on its distant target. The skill in operating
the weapon lay in computing and compensating for the distortions
induced in the aiming system by enemy electronic countermeasures.
In one passage, Charlie detailed the effects of a near miss from
Minerva that lasted for sixteen minutes, during which time it
melted a range of mountains about fifteen miles from Seltar,
including the Twenty-second and Nineteenth Armored Divisions and
the Forty-fifth Tactical Missile Squadron that had been positioned
there.
“This is it,” Hunt said, waving one of the sheets in the air.
“Listen to this. We’ve got it! Four minutes ago we fired a
concentrated burst at maximum power. The announcement has just come
over the loudspeaker down here that it scored a direct hit.
Everyone is laughing and clapping each other on the back. Some of
the women are crying with relief. That,” said Hunt, slapping the
papers down on the table and slumping back in his chair with
exasperation, “is bloody ridiculous! Within four minutes of firing
they had confirmation of a hit! How? How in God’s name could they
have? We know that when Minerva and Earth were at their closest,
the distance between them would have been one hundred fifty to one
hundred sixty million miles. The radiation would have taken
something like thirteen minutes to cover that distance, and there
would have to be at least another thirteen minutes before anybody
on Luna could possibly know about where it struck. So, even with