The Space Sorcerers

Chapter One

THE ATTACK was sudden, savage, suicidal and senseless.

The Tinkers did not bring guns of any kind with them. They attacked with knives, clubs, spears and crossbows, and that was the only reasonable thing about the operation. At least they got well into Shan, all six thousand of them, without any alarm being given, and without blowing themselves up.

What followed was an ancient battle between footsoldiers, a battle displaced in time by umpteen centuries and in space by umpteen light-years (the Persephone system was about as far from Sol as it was possible to get, short of hopping to the next galaxy, which was not yet on the cards).

The Tinkers’ ship, probably just behind the low hills which made Shan a valley, was maintaining the usual anti-powerweapon fields. For that matter, so was Shan. Therefore explosives were chancy, electronic devices more dangerous to those at the butt end than at the muzzle, and atomic devices downright deadly to everybody. So the Alphans, too, had to fight with bayonets and arrows. But they, unlike the marauders, were defending their base. They didn’t have to fight only with what they could carry. The big spring guns wrought carnage, the catapults took terrible toll until the fighting became too close for them to be used any more, and even when the Alphans went out to meet the advance, hand to hand, they had light armour which gave them a 3-1 chance in single combat against an enemy which had none.

Against this was the suicidal fury of the Tinkers. Their battle-cry, if they’d had one, would have been Kill and Die, and that was what they did. The Alphans merely had all the other advantages. Many an Alphan joined his forefathers because he just couldn’t believe any human being could be so careless of his own life. When in single combat you set up a situation which makes surrender obligatory for anybody but a madman, you expect, you count on surrender. And you die if the enemy throws himself on your lance, his cleaver lopping off your head as he does so.

Nevertheless, when the few remaining Tinkers withdrew, the ground was covered with dead and dying Tinkers, with only a few Alphans lying still among them here and there.

There was no pursuit. Hundreds of wounded Alphans needed attention. It was necessary also, since Shan was civilised, to care for the thousands of wounded Tinkers …

But it transpired there were no wounded Tinkers. As the medical teams and ambulances gradually cleaned up the bloody plain in front of the Shan HQ, a scarcely credible fact emerged.

Some of the relatively few Alphans on the battlefield were dead, some dying, some badly injured. That was to be expected. But all of the Tinkers were dead. Those whose wounds later inspection showed to be less than mortal had poisoned themselves. All of them carried poison pills, some in their mouths, the rest in convenient pockets. And every one had used them. Those who for one reason or another had either lost their pills or were unable to get them to their mouths had contrived to kill themselves with knives or anything else sufficiently lethal available on the battlefield. (There was plenty.)

Six thousand Tinkers attacked. Less than a thousand got away. Only 529 Alphans were killed, though there were 1625 wounded. Total Tinker casualties, 5107 dead plus injured who escaped. Total Alphan casualties, 529 plus perhaps about twenty who would die later.

It didn’t make sense.

Chapter Two

Subcontroller Joyce Berry came running through the bare corridors of Sector Control 1444. Her uniform was in considerable disorder, few buttons buttoned and fewer still in the right holes. Instead of staring, the navymen who encountered her politely averted their eyes.

Subcontroller Berry was past admitting her age, past trying to slim, past caring. But she was a good officer, which was why the navymen were tactful. Navymen from time immemorial, conscious of being in vulnerable ships, and later in vulnerable spaceships or space stations, had appreciated good officers and uneasily cursed and reviled bad officers who were liable to let them get killed for no particular reason.

Controller Seburg, showing less presence of mind than the men under him, blinked at his breathless and dishevelled second-in-command and automatically drew full breath for a rebuke.

Joyce Berry, who knew him better than he knew himself, gasped: You buzzed a red alert, Controller. I thought you meant it.

Of course I meant it, Berry, but … oh, never mind. Berry, it’s war.

So the Tinkers have attacked Shan?

Seburg’s reproof was automatic: Please use the correct designation, Berry.

Persephone Alpha and Beta. But I doubt if that really is the correct designation any more, sir. The Alphans call their own world Shangri-La, Shan for short, and who else has a better right to name it? And the Betans are not only called Tinkers by everyone in the galaxy who knows they exist, they even call themselves Tinkers.

Seburg grunted.

He was a Colonel Blimp caricature. The sparse hair, the glowing red face with the wispy moustache, the harumph with which he preceded most of his remarks, the tight collar, the unnecessarily tight uniform which cruelly delineated his pot belly, all had been caricatured in every war and in every peace.

Since he was a slow thinker, Joyce had time to get her breath back and fasten the right buttons and make a token attempt to look like an officer.

Joyce was not plump enough to be fat. However, what used to be curves had become bulges, and she looked older than her thirty-three years. Though never elegant or even particularly tidy, she had been attractive only a few years ago and known in the Navy as a regular girl, for the usual reasons.

At last Seburg said: We’ve got to do something, Berry. There are only four major settlements in the sector, and one has attacked another. No warning, no declaration, nothing. We’ve got to do something.

Joyce was puzzled by her superior’s line of thought, a rare circumstance. What could Sector Control 1444 do, now that the Tinkers had actually opened fire on the delectable, desirable Shan? Sector Control 1444, a mere frontier post, had a radio installation capable of miracles in communication, but no teeth. The two little scout ships could travel fast and frighten a village, perhaps even a small town, but not a planet.

What have you in mind, Controller? she asked.

First I’m going to send a stiff message to Persephone Beta. The attack was completely unprovoked … well, what’s the matter, Berry?

I wouldn’t do that without having something to back it up. It’s no use telling the Tinkers they’ve been bad boys and not to do it again, unless you’ve got something you can do if they spit in your eye, which they will.

Quietly Seburg said: Well, what would you do, Berry?

Oh … Simply ask the Tinkers to explain, sir. Be very stiff and correct. Ask to be put in touch with their superiors, their top men.

We don’t know who they are, Berry. We never have.

The Tinkers had never had any top men. They were a collection of individualists, all out for the fast million bucks.

Maybe we’ll flush them out. An attack means a plan. Somebody has a last managed to make the Tinkers act together.

Half to himself, Seburg embarked on a bitter diversion. They put you out here on the edge of beyond to keep law and order on four frontier worlds and half a dozen other pioneer settlements … and if anything goes wrong it takes four months for a Navy ship to get here, if by some fortunate chance there’s a Navy ship available in Section 337 — eleven months minimum if there isn’t…

Since Joyce said nothing, he added, even more to himself: I’ll never get promotion, I know that. Best I can hope for is not to be downgraded. Any little thing they think I do wrong means the chop.

Joyce said carefully: Your first step has got to be to ask the Tinkers to explain, sir. Meantime there’s something else you could do — send Rey Cottrell to Shan.

Do what? said Seburg, startled. Who’s Rey Cottrell?

A war consultant.

Well … well, maybe, though war consultants are only semi-official, and it could be a mistake … Berry, where is this Cottrell? And how do you happen to know about him?

He’s on Oscran, on holiday. You know all war consultants are trained and doped for emergency subspace flight. And he’s got to have his special ship with him. He could be on Shan in six days.

If he’ll go. He could refuse.

That’s all right, as long as you’ve asked him.

Seburg, irresolute, returned to his earlier question. How do you know about him? How do you know he’s on Oscran?

I always check visa lists. Can’t pretend to spot everything, but the presence of a war consultant, even on holiday, is worth noting.

You’re right, Berry. But first, before we do anything drastic, let’s try to raise the Tinkers.

The message went out. It was not acknowledged.

Persephone Beta had never had any sort of diplomatic contact with anywhere else. It was like a mine without a phone, without a road, and with radio which was manned only when it suited the Tinkers.

For Sector Control 1444 there was a way in, certainly. The scouts could be there in four days, perhaps three in an emergency. But once there, what could they do?

Berry was right as usual, Seburg thought. No use making an empty gesture. Gunboat politics depended on having a gunboat.

There’s one more thing we can do, sir, said Joyce. Something that really puts pressure on the Tinkers.

She spoke as if he already knew what it was. Indeed, she did assume this, until Seburg harumphed to give himself time to think. Tactfully she went on as if he did know: It doesn’t have to be an ultimatum at this stage. Just a simple reminder that you have the power to black all exports from Beta. We can take it for granted they pick up our messages, even if they don’t choose to answer them. Cut off their exports and you cut the very reason for their existence.

Yes, Berry. Yes, we can do that. Characteristically, the moment he saw the possibilities he saw the snags. They’ll still be able to sell their metals somewhere. Plenty of settlements aren’t fussy —

But with more trouble, and at a lower price. An embargo would hit them all right, sir.

True … I’ll send another message. They probably won’t answer it either.

He was right. Still, the Tinkers had nailed their colours to the mast, and when the Controller thought of another snag and said, frowning: Sending Cottrell to Shan means taking sides, backing Shan in this business, doesn’t it? Joyce was able to reply soothingly: Not necessarily. The Tinkers won’t talk to us. So we’ve every excuse to talk to Shan.

He nodded, still irresolute. I’d be happier if we only knew something about this Cottrell … you don’t know anything, I guess? Except he’s a war consultant?

As it happens, said Joyce with careful absence of expression, I do know him slightly. If I were you, I’d take the chance of contacting him. He is usually … successful.

Chapter Three

Rey Cottrell was not at the moment pursuing his profession, which meant that he could devote all his energies to pursuing the delectable Lydia Moore.

He seldom tangled with married women, partly because it wasn’t necessary and partly because he didn’t like complication for complication’s sake. But this planter’s wife was something special. Cottrell, who loved all women, loved best those who attracted him by being beautiful and nothing else.

The jeep’s radio chirped and he turned it up. Cottrell, are you off the road yet? This in the harsh tones of Macdonald, the plantation overseer. No, you’re not, I can hear the motor. You’re still in the jungle. Well, if you’re not at the tower in fifteen minutes, you’re set for a long sleep.

Sure, Mr. Macdonald, said Cottrell soothingly. You told me. I signed a paper.

"Don’t know why you want to waste your time on a yegi hunt anyway. It’s dull, it’s routine."

But I’ve never seen one, Mr. Macdonald, and you never know when such experiences might come in handy.

The overseer grunted and signed off.

What Cottrell said happened to be true; if a war consultant didn’t know just about everything that he could use or that might be used against him, he was liable to remain an unsuccessful, unconsulted consultant. This yegi hunt in the South Oscran jungle offered little in the way of unusual war techniques except the use of two-stage trivoluene gas on a large scale, a technique of such limited and circumscribed value that it would be hardly worth trying except against ignorant savages. And ignorant savages were in very short supply in the galaxy. Savages, yes; ignorant, no.

Still, something of the sort might conceivably be tried against Cottrell one day. He should know about it.

That was the excuse.

The tower was a Tarzan-type treetop house in a clearing, but made of metal and much higher than the bush-trees of Oscran, which got discouraged more than ten feet off the ground. And as he drove up and stopped the jeep, there she was, waiting.

She didn’t speak, just met his gaze with that frank, provocative look of hers.

Where’s the others? he said.

Her