War No. 81-Q

(Rewritten Version)

For a few brief happy centuries, war was made into an enormous game. Then the world population passed the thirty-billion point, Acting Chief Minister Chatterji presented the "Rightful Proportions" formula to the world authorities, and war turned from a game into realities. When it was over, hideous new creepers covered the wreckage of cities, saints and morons camped in the overpasses of disused highways, and a few man-hunting machines scoured the world in search of surviving weapons.

I

Long before real war set mankind back a thousand ages, the nations played with their formulae of "safe war." Wars were easily declared, safely fought, won or lost with noblesse oblige, and accepted as decisive. Wars were rare enough to sweep all other events from the television screens, beautiful enough to warrant the utmost in scenic decoration, and tough enough to call for champions with perfect eyesight and no nerves at all. The weapons were dirigibles armed with missiles, countermissiles, and feinting screens; they had been revived because they were slow enough to show well on the viewscreens, hard enough to demand a skillful fight. A whole class of warriors developed to manage these—men who trained on the ski-slopes and underwater beaches of the world's resorts and who then, tanned and fit, sat in control rooms and managed the ships from their own home bases. The kinescopes were paired up so that pictures of the battle alternated with scenes of the warriors sitting in their controls, the foreheads wrinkled with worry, their gasps of dismay or smiles of triumph showing plainly, and the whole drama of human emotion revealed in their performance of a licensed war. War came near between Tibet and America.

Tibet had been liberated from the Goonhogo, the central Chinese government, only with generous American help and with the threat (was it bluff? was it death?) trembling in the rocket pits around Lake Erie. No one ever found out whether the Americans would have risked real war, because the Chinese did not force a show of strength. The Americans had been supported by the Reunion of India and the Federated Congos on the floor of the world assembly, and there were political debts to be settled when the Tibetan liberation came true. The Congo asked for support on Saharan claims, which was easy enough, since this was a matter of voting in the assembly, but the Reunion of India asked for the largest solar power-collector, to reach eighty miles along the southern crest of the Himalayas. The Americans hesitated, and then built it under lease from Tibet, keeping title in their own hands. Just before the first surges of power were due to pour down into the Bengal plains, Tibetan soldiers entered the control rooms with a warrant from the Tibetan ministry of the interior seizing the plant, Tibetan technicians hooked in new cables which had been flown from the Goonhogo base at Teli in Yunnan, and the Tibetans announced they had leased the entire power output to their recent enemies, the Goonhogo of China. Even in politics, where gratitude is seldom expected, such bleak ingratitude was hard to bear. The Americans had just freed the Tibetans from the Chinese, and now the Tibetans seized the reward which America had built for Indian help on Tibetan territory. Legally, the deal was tight. The solar accumulators were on Tibetan soil, and under the system of "sovereignty" which prevailed at that time, any nation could do what it pleased on its own territory and get off scot-free.

Some Americans were so furious that they clamored for a real war against the Goonhogo of China. The president himself remarked mildly that it did not seem right to fight an antagonist merely because he showed himself cleverer than we.

Congress voted a licensed war.

The president had no further choice. He had to declare war on Tibet. He put a request for the permit in to the world secretariat. The license came back for

"War No. 81-Q," since someone in the world secretariat figured that Tibet should not pay for any but the smallest-size war. The Americans had asked for a class-A war, which would have lasted up to four full days. The world secretariat refused a review of the case.

There was nothing left to do.

America was at war.

The president sent for Jack Reardon.

II

Reardon was the best licensed warrior America had.

"Morning, Jack," said the president. "You haven't fought for two years, when Iceland beat us. Do you feel up to it now?"

"Fitter than ever, sir," said Jack. He hesitated and then went on, "Please don't mention Iceland, sir. Nobody has ever beaten Sigurd Sigurdssen. Lucky for us that he's retired."

"I wouldn't have called you if I just meant to reproach you. I know you did the best that anyone could do short of the great Sigurd himself. That's why you're here. How do you think we should run it?"

"There's not much choice on ships, not with a class-Q war. They had better all five be the new Mark Zeros. Since we challenged, I think the Tibetans will choose the cheapest war they can. They don't want to run up a big bill on themselves. The Goonhogo would help them, but the Chinese would be around two days later, asking for payment."

"I didn't know," said the President with a gentle smile, "that you were also an expert on international affairs."

Reardon looked uncomfortable. "Sorry, sir," he muttered.

"That's all right," said the president. "I had it figured the same way. They will take the Kerguelen islands then?"

"Probably," said Reardon, "and our picture people are going to be furious. But the French keep those islands cheap. It's the only way they can hold it in the market as a war zone."

The president's manner changed completely. Instead of being a civilized old gentleman who had recently had his breakfast, he acted like the shrewd, selfish politician who had beaten all his competitors for the job and who had then found that his country needed a president much more than he had ever needed a presidency. He looked Reardon in the face, staring sharply and deeply into his eyes, and then asked, in a formal, solemn tone:

"Jack, this may be the biggest question of your life. How do you want to fight it?"

Reardon stiffened. "I thought it would be out of place to make up a list of team mates, sir. I thought perhaps you would have a list—"

"I don't mean that at all," said the president. "Do you prefer to fight it alone?"

"Alone, sir?"

"Don't play modest with me, Reardon," said the president. "You're the best man we have. As a matter of fact, you're the only first-class man we have. There are some youngsters coming up, but there aren't any more in your class—" Reardon forgot himself, so technical was the subject, and interrupted the president: "Boggs is good, sir. He's had six fights as a mercenary in these little African wars."

"Reardon," said the president, "you interrupted me."

"I beg your pardon, sir," stammered Reardon.

"Boggs has nothing to do with it. I've seen him too, you know. Even if I add him, that only makes two pilots who are first-class." Reardon looked straight at the president, his face begging for permission to speak.

The president smiled faintly: "Okay, what is it?"

"How about filling in the team with mercenaries, sir?"

"Mercenaries!" shouted the president. "Good lord, no! That would be the worst possible thing we could do. We'd look like fools all over the world. I played with real war to get Tibet free, and the Goonhogo of China gave in just because some of the people in the Goonhogo thought that Americans were still tough. Hire one mercenary and it's all gone. We have the posture of America to preserve. Will you or won't you?"

Reardon looked genuinely puzzled, "Will I what, sir?"

"You fool," said the president, "can you fight the war alone or can't you? You know the rules."

Reardon knew them. For using a single pilot, the nation obtained a tremendous advantage. Two enemy ships down and his nation won, no matter how many ships he himself lost. There hadn't been a one-pilot war since the great Sigurd Sigurdssen defeated Federated Europe, Morocco, Japan, and Brazil in one-two-three-four order, thirty-two years ago. After that no one had challenged Iceland to a class-Q war. Iceland went on declaring licensed wars on the slightest provocation; the Icelanders had accumulated enough credit to fight a hundred wars. The challenged powers all chose the largest, most complicated wars they could, trying to swamp Sigurd in a maze of teamwork. Reardon stared out of the window. The president let him think. At last he spoke, and his voice was heavy with conviction,

"I can try it, sir. They've given us the chance by demanding a class-Q war. But I'm no Sigurd and you know it, sir."

"I know it, Reardon," said the president seriously, "but perhaps none of us—not even you yourself—know what your very best performance can be. Will you do it, Reardon, for the country, for me, for yourself?" Reardon nodded. Fame and victory looked very bleak to him at that moment.

III

The formalities came through with no trouble.

Tibet and America both claimed the Himalayan Escarpment Solar Banks. They agreed that the title should yield through war.

The Universal War Board granted a war permit, subject to strict and clear conditions:

1. The war was to be fought only at the times and places specified. 2. No human being was to be killed or injured, directly or indirectly, by any performance of the machines of war. Emotional injury was not to be considered. 3. An appropriate territory was to be leased and cleared. Provisions should be made for the maximum removal of wildlife, particularly birds, which might be hurt by the battle.

4. The weapons were to be winged dirigibles with a maximum weight of 22,000

tons, propelled by non-nuclear engines.

5. All radio channels were to be strictly monitored by the U.W.B. and by both parties. At any complaint of jamming or interference the war was to be brought to a halt.

6. Each dirigible should have six non-explosive missiles and thirty non-explosive countermissiles.

7. The U.W.B. was to intercept and to destroy all stray missiles and real weapons before the missiles left the war zone, and each party, regardless of the outcome of the war, was to pay the U.W.B. directly for the interception and destruction of stray missiles.

8. No living human beings were to be allowed on the ships, in the war zone, or on the communications equipment which relayed the war to the world's televisions. (The last remembered casualties of "safe war" had been video crews who had ridden their multicopter into the blazing guns of a combat dirigible before the pilot, thousands of miles away, could see them and stop his guns.)

9. The "stipulated territory" was to be the War Territory of Kerguelen, to be leased by both parties from the Fourteenth French Republic, as agent for Federated Europe, at the price of four million gold livres the hour. 10. Seating for the war, apart from video rights belonging to the combatants, should remain the sole property of the lessor of the War Territory of Kerguelen.

With these arrangements, the French off-lifted their sheep from the island ranges of Kerguelen—the weary sheep were getting thoroughly used to being lifted from their grazing land to Antarctic lighters every time a war occurred—and the scene was ready.

Reardon planned to work from Omaha; he supposed that his Tibetan counterparts would be stationed in Lhasa, but since Tibet had not been an independent power for many generations, he wondered what mercenaries they might obtain. They might get Sung from Peking; he had six battles more than Reardon and was a dependable fighter.

* * *

IV

The French sold out their seats and view-spots around Kerguelen very easily. The usual smugglers sold telescopes which would allegedly give perfect non-copyright views of the war and, as usual, most of them did not work; the purchasers merely had a cruise out of Durban, Madras, or Perth in vain. The warships were ready. The American ones were gold in color, stubby wings sticking out from the sides of their cigar-shaped bodies, the ancient American eagle surrounded by red, white and blue circles on their sides. The five Tibetan ships turned out to be old Chinese Goonhogo models on rental. The emblem of China had been painted out and the prayer-wheel of Tibet shone fresh with new paint. The Chinese mechanics were expert to the point of trickiness; the American member of the umpire team insisted on inspection of all ten ships before he signed for the entry into the War Territory of Kerguelen. The minute of opening was noon, local time. Reardon started with a real advantage. Positions had been chosen at random by the umpires and he was facing into a strong west wind, while the enemy ships had to hold back lest they be blown out of the territory.

Some fool in a swivel chair had named the American airships for characters out of Shakespeare, so that Reardon found himself managing the Prospero, the Ariel, the Oberon, the Caliban, and the Titania. The Tibetans had not taken the time to re-name the Chinese ships, which had the titles of old dynasties: the Han, the Yuan, the Ch'ing, the Chin, and the Ming. Reardon kept his ships lined up close to the spectators, so that the Tibetans could not fire missiles at him without shooting out of the Territory and being penalized. He glanced up at the board in Omaha to see his antagonists, who had come on the telescreen. Sung was there, all right; so, too, was Baartek, a famous mercenary who flew under the flag of Liechtenstein and looked for quarrels wherever he could find them. The other three were strangers. One of them, wearing Tibetan clothes, was a girl. "That's a good Chinese propaganda trick," thought Reardon. "Trust the Goonhogo never to miss a bet!" The Chinese got the displeasure of the spectators by casting a smoke screen. There really wasn't much else they could do, with their dirigibles pumping awkwardly in reverse against the wind. When the smoke screen neared his ships, Reardon jumped. He put the Prospero on manual, made three wild guesses, and sprang.

The Prospero came ruined out of the other side of the smoke wall. Two missiles had pierced her and Reardon doubted that the salvage crew would get much of her by the time the war ended.

But he had almost won the war. He had rammed both the Han and the Ming. He used the eyes of the Ariel to watch them. The crippled Ming fought for position over the cold, cold waters of the deep South Indian Ocean. Reardon suspected that Baartek had taken over. She fired suddenly; he twisted the Ariel. Sheets of flame behind his ship told him that the U.W.B. had intercepted the missiles with live weapons, to keep them from harming the massed spectators. The flashes went on for so long that his viewscreens shone with a quivering, milky white. There were going to be a lot of headaches among those spectators who watched those interception flashes too long, thought he. Baartek obviously did not care what his Tibetan employers paid in penalty money. Yet the Ariel had gotten away so easily!

The Han, meanwhile, though falling, had attacked the Caliban, which lost its left wing and began drifting downward. Reardon shot a reproachful glance at the robot who had been managing the ship for him, and decided not to take time to curse the robot programmers who had guessed events so poorly. The face and voice of the U.W.B. umpire appeared on all screens. "The Caliban, American. The Han, Tibetan. Take both of them off the field. Suspend fire and remove."

Under the scoring system, Reardon had just lost the winning of the war. All he needed to do was to down two enemy ships and keep one of his own in the air for the period of the war, and he had won. But the Ming, now on the whitecaps and breaking up, was the first of his victories; the Han was to have been the other. Now he had to start over again.

He put the Ariel on robot and took over the Titania himself. One of the enemy ships began creeping toward him along the line of the spectators. It could not fire at him, because the Territory was rectangular and the Titania was too close to a corner. He could not fire at it unless he got the Titania down with her belly almost in the water; then his stray shots would escape into space.

He and the enemy started their dive at the same time. His command screen blanked out. The face of the president appeared on the screen. Only the president had that kind of overriding priority.

"How's it going, my boy? Doesn't look too good, does it?" Reardon wanted to scream, "Get off, you fool!" But it was the president; one does not scream at presidents. He forced himself to speak politely, though he knew his face had gone white with rage. "Please, sir, get off the screen. It's all right, sir. Thank you." The president got off the screen and Reardon found himself back on the Titania just as the enemy cut her in two.

In a wild rage, but a controlled rage, he took over the Ariel, letting the ruined Titania go to the waves below.

He spat a smoke screen himself, and it rushed toward him. He rose to the top of it just in time to see two Chinese ships go looking for him. He dived back in. The smoke was thinning. He struck for the lever which fired a time-on-target, all missiles reaching for the same instant. But he thought of that fool of a president and he struck the wrong lever: destruct. The Ariel blew up in a pretty show of fireworks. There were two other orange clouds near her. The video eye on the foredeck of the Ariel showed him that he had technically won the war. The other two ships went down with him. He switched to the Oberon, his last remaining ship. There were still two Chinese to his one. They were the Ch'ing and the Yuan. The umpire came on, "You hit 'destruct.' That is not allowed as a weapon in a licensed war."

"It was an error," snapped Reardon. "You can look at your tape of me. You can see that I was reaching for 'time-on-target'." There was a moment of silence while the blank screens buzzed. Then the umpire came back on, speaking to Baartek and Sung but letting Reardon listen in. "The rules don't really cover this," said the umpire. "It was a mistake, but your ships were taking a chance in getting that close to him. He was coming after you from the top. I rule it a net gain."

Now all he had to do was to stay alive for the next sixty-seven minutes—alive meaning with a ship in the field.

He began creeping along the line of the spectators, so close that some of them backed up. Many voices called for the umpire, but Reardon made sure that he had his hundred meters' tolerance.

The Ch'ing and the Yuan both lined up on him. He had to use emergency jets to dip in order to escape their missiles. He thought that the Ch'ing had four left and the Yuan three, but the battle had gone so fast, with so much in smoke, that he could not be absolutely sure. It was like some of the old card games: sometimes even the best players lost command of a complete recollection of the cards.

He dived again.

The Chinese ships followed.

A missile clipped the elevator vane of his right wing. Reardon took advantage of it. He turned the Oberon sideways, like a crippled ship, and let it drop toward the water.

The Yuan followed for a look and he gave it to her. He cut a hole in her that he could see daylight through. She drifted toward the spectators, out of control. There was a bright flash from the protective weapons of the U.W.B. and she was gone.

The Oberon touched water and as she touched, Reardon rammed the engines into full reverse. He fired two of his precious missiles directly into the water itself. An enormous cloud of steam arose and the Oberon rose faster than an airship had ever risen before. He could not see where he was going, because his video was still looking at the waves and he was rising in reverse, but he watched his damage-control screen and he set his audio on high. The impact came.

The Oberon crunched into something that could only be the Ch'ing. Reardon increased the thrust, cutting his ship in a sharp turn, still in reverse. He fired backwards into the ship he had rammed and pushed it inexorably back toward the water. The two ships, in collision, had not yet burst into flame.

Damage control suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree. The whole back of his ship was gone.

Using his fingertips and stroking the controls as lightly as he possibly could, he called for ASCEND. All he could see was the open sky above and the spectator craft, looking odd since they seemed to sit sidewise in the air, on the left of his pattern. The Oberon came loose from something. He had sunk the Ch'ing without ever seeing it.

The umpire came on the board. "Your ship's clear of the water. The other one is out. War is over, sixty-one minutes ahead of time. Victory is declared for America. Tibet has lost."

In a different tone, the umpire said, "Congratulations, my boy. The enemy pilots wish to congratulate you, too. May they?"

V

Before Reardon could say yes or no, his screen blanked out. The president had used his priority again.

Reardon saw with amusement that the old gentleman was weeping. "You've done it, lad, you've done it. I always knew you would." Reardon forced his face into a smile of approval and sat waiting for the screen to show him the faces of his friendly enemies. Baartek was sure to insist on a dinner; he always did.