Battleground

We know that the human race must struggle to survive--and that on the outcome may hang disaster. But just how wide is Armageddon?

Lester del Rey would certainly be acclaimed by any unbiased critic as one of America's ten most gifted science fiction writers. His work has appeared in many magazines, and Hollywood, radio, and TV have all enhanced his ever-growing popularity. In BATTLEGROUND he has found a theme worthy of his rare talents--the doom potential in an alien culture.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe July 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Beyond the observation port of the hypercruiser Clarion lay the utter blackness of nothing. The ship was effectively cutting across space without going through it, spanning parsecs for every subjective day of travel.

There were neither stars, space nor time around them, and only the great detectors built into the ship could keep them from being hopelessly lost. These followed a trail of energy laid down on the way out from Earth years before, leading them homeward, solar system by solar system.

Acting Captain Lenk stood with his back to the other three, studying their sullen reflections in the port. It was better than facing them directly, somehow, even though it showed his own bald scalp, tautly hollow face and slump-shouldered body.

"All right," he said at last. "So we vote again. I'll have to remind you we're under orders to investigate all habitable planets on a line back to Earth. I vote we follow orders. Jeremy?"

The xenologist shrugged faintly. His ash-blond coloring, general slimness and refinement of features gave him a look of weakness, but his voice was a heavy, determined bass. "I stand pat. We didn't explore the last planet enough. I vote we go back and make a thorough job of it."

"Home--at once!" The roar came from the squat, black-bearded minerologist, Graves. "God never meant man to leave the world on which He put him! Take us back, I say, where...."

"Aimes?" Lenk cut in quickly.

They'd heard Graves' violently fundamentalist arguments endlessly, until the sound of his voice was enough to revive every antagonism and hatred they had ever felt. Graves had been converted to the newest and most rapidly expanding of the extreme evangelical faiths just before they had left. And unfortunately for the others, he had maintained that his covenant to go on the exploration could not be broken, even though venturing into space was a cardinal sin.

Aimes glowered at the others from under grizzled eyebrows. Of them all, the linguodynamicist took part in the fewest arguments and apparently detested the others most. He turned his heavy body now as he studied them, seemingly trying to make up his mind which he detested most at the moment. Then he grunted.

"With you, Captain," Aimes said curtly.

He swung on his heel and stalked out of the control cabin, to go back to studying the undeciphered writing of the planets they had visited.

Graves let out a single hiss and followed, probably heading for the galley, since it was his period to cook.

Jeremy waited deliberately until the minerologist's footsteps could no longer be heard, and then turned to leave.

Lenk hesitated for a second, then decided that monotony was worse than anything else. "How about some chess, Jeremy?" he asked.

The other stopped, and some of the sullenness left his face. Apparently the protracted arguments had wearied him until he was also feeling the relief of decisive action. "Why not?" Jeremy said. "I'll set up the board while you fiddle with your dials."

No fiddling was necessary, since Lenk had never cut them off their automatic detecting circuit, but he went through the motions for the other's benefit. Gravitic strain came faintly through hyperspace, and the ship could locate suns by it. If approach revealed planets of habitable size, it was set to snap out of hyperspace automatically near the most likely world.

Lenk had been afraid such a solar system might be found before they could resolve the argument, and his own relief from the full measure of cabin fever came from the end of that possibility.

They settled down to the game with a minimum of conversation. Since the other four members of the crew had been killed by some unknown virus, conversation had proven less than cheerful. It was better when they were on a planet and busy, but four people were too few for the monotony of hypertravel.

Then Jeremy snapped out of it. He cleared his throat tentatively while castling, grimaced, and then nodded positively. "I was right, Lenk. We never did explore those other planets properly."

"Maybe not," Lenk agreed. "But with the possibility of alien raiders headed toward Earth...."

"Bunk! No sign of raiders. Every indication was that the races on those worlds killed themselves off--no technology alien to their own culture. And there would have been with aliens invading."

"Time that way? Coincidence can account for just so much."

"It has to account for the lowering cultural levels in the colonizing direction," Jeremy said curtly. "Better leave that sort of argument to Aimes. He's conditioned to it."

Lenk shrugged and turned back to the chess. It was over his head, anyhow.

Men had built only three other cruisers capable of exceeding the speed of light, so far. The first had gone out in a direction opposite to that of the Clarion and had returned to report a regular decline in culture as the distance of habitable worlds from Earth increased. The nearest was in a medieval state, the next an early bronze culture, then a stone-age one, and so on, down to the furthest explored, where the native race had barely discovered fire.

It had been either impossible coincidence or the evidence of some law nobody has been quite ready to accept, save for the newly spreading fundamentalists, who maintained it proved that Earth was the center of the universe.

The other two cruisers had not reported back when the Clarion took off.

And their own trip had only added to the mystery, and they had touched on four habitable systems. And on each, there had been evidence of a highly developed race and some vast struggle that had killed off that race completely.

The furthest had lain fallow for an unguessable period of time, and in each succeeding one, evidence indicated the time interval since the destruction of the culture had been less. On the world they had left, the end must have come not more than a few thousand years before.

"Suppose one race had gone along in a straight line, seeding the systems with life," Lenk guessed. "Remember, every race we found had similarities. And suppose another race of conquerors stumbled on that line and is mopping up? Maybe with some weapon that leaves no trace."

Jeremy looked at him. "Suppose Graves is right, and his God wipes out all wicked races. He keeps planting races, hoping they'll turn out right, and wiping out the old ones?" he snorted. "Only, of course he thinks Earth is the only world that counts. We're dealing with facts, Lenk, not wild theories. And why should an alien race simply wipe out another race, wait a thousand years or so, and move on--without using the plant afterwards, even for a base for the next operation? Also, why should we find plenty of weapons, but no skeletons?"

"Skeletons are pretty fragile. And if somebody had the mythical heat ray...."

"Bunk! If it would vaporize calcium in the bones, it would vaporize some of the parts of the weapons we found." Jeremy moved a rook, considered it, and pointed. "Check. And there are always some parts of skeletons that will last more than a thousand years. I've got a theory, but it's...."

Pale light cut through the viewing port, and a gong sounded in the room. Lenk jerked to his feet and moved to his screens.

"Maybe we'll know now," he said. "We'll be landing on a planet in about an hour. And it looks pretty much like Earth, from here."

He cranked up the gain on the magnifiers, and studied it again, scanning the surface of the planet below them. There were clouds in the sky, but through a clear patch he made out enough evidence.

"Want me to set us down near a city?" he asked, pointing.