New Writings in SF 19 by John Carnell (ed.)

Author:John Carnell (ed.) [Carnell, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Story Collection, Science Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

STOOP TO CONQUER

by

John Rackham

Given two opposing armed forces whose battle tactics are worked out by computers of equal ability, then how break the deadlock?

STOOP TO CONQUER

The howling wind that struck Caswell’s left shoulder and threatened to throw him off course had whooped its way down from the North Pole and seemed full of bitter determination to sweep him away just as it had effectively swept away everything else on the bleak iron-hard plateau. Snow as fine as flour further hampered vision already restricted by the shielding goggles he wore. Had it not been for the second-by-second radio-tone in each ear he would have long since lost his aim. So long as those two notes didn’t jangle he knew he was going in the right direction. That much the military outpost could do for him. They had also told him he had about three miles to go, on his own, before he struck the nearest Meden outpost. Three miles hadn’t seemed all that much, when he started out, but now it felt as if he had been plodding and slithering forward half a life-time.

The hunched shoulder, tucked-in chin and squint forward into grey haze had become mechanical, leaving his mind free to go over, forwards and backwards, the reasons why he was here, almost as alien in this setting as the aliens he was going to meet. Reviewing data and trying it in various combinations was nothing new to him. Sam Caswell, BA, PhD, mathematician, poet and pianist, ardent pacifist, was also Chief Analyst of the Strategic Computer Complex of United Earth. That post had been created within weeks of the horrible reality of the Meden invasion of Earth, almost a year ago now, and it followed that Caswell knew as much as anybody and more than most about the Meden. Because he was a natural-born computer-man he wasn’t at all sure that he knew enough to justify what he was now doing. He wasn’t absolutely sure. Ninety-eight per cent plus was as close as he could make it, and the missing fraction bothered him a lot more than the slippery underfoot or the savagely cold wind. So he went ever it again, step by step, as he leaned into the bitter blast and struggled on.

Almost exactly a year ago, the Meden had come, abruptly from nowhere, without warning, announcing their presence and intentions with stark efficiency. Dark and anonymous ships, a whole fleet of them, were suddenly there in orbit and while astonished humanity was still reacting to the surprise, out went the tiny and precarious outpost on Ganymede, out in a bigger show of fireworks went the struggling dome-colonies of Mars, and out, in a really spectacular but swift demonstration, went the whole Lunar complex. Within short hours of those body-blows came the neatly-tied-off-ends report that there remained not one single artificial satellite anywhere in Earth’s orbital space. Then, while everyone scrambled crazily for cover and wondered what to do next, the dark fleet divided itself neatly into two and came down, with neither flourish nor fanfare, to settle and dig in at either Pole.

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