“Morning,” he said to the postman.

  “Yeah,” the man answered, slinging his heavy bag around and digging into it. Amos closed the door first—then feverishly went through the mail.

  It wasn’t there.

  He had won!

  If this was not the happiest day in his life it was close to it. Besides this, his victories over the bus company and the coin-machine crooks were nothing. This was a war won, not a battle. He’d licked them, licked their statistics and actuaries, accountants, mechanical brains, card files, clerks, and editors. He had won! He went out and drank a beer, the first one in two years; then another. Laughed and talked with the gang at the bar. He had won! He fell into bed late and slept like a log until he was dragged awake by his landlady knocking on the door.

  “Mail for you, Mr. Cabot. Mail.”

  Fear gripped him, then slowly ebbed away. It couldn’t be. In two years Hereafter had never been late once, not one day. It must be some other mail—though this wasn’t his check day. He slowly opened the door and took the large envelope, his grip so loose that it almost fell from his fingers.

  Only when he had laid it on the bed did he breathe naturally again—it wasn’t Hereafter in its vile blue envelope; this one was a gentle pink. It did contain a magazine, though, just about the size of Hereafter, a bulky magazine with lots of pages. Its title was Senility—and the black letters were drawn in such a way that they looked as though they were made of cracked and crumbling stone. Underneath the title it said The Magazine of Geri-ART-trics. There was a picture of a feeble old man in a wheelchair with a blanket around his shoulders, sucking water through a curved glass tube. Inside was more. Ads for toilet chairs and hemorrhoid cushions, crutches and crank beds, articles on “Learn Braille When the Eyesight Goes,” and “Happy Though Bedridden,” and “Immobile for Twenty-five Years.” A letter dropped out of the magazine and he half-read phrases here and there.

  Welcome to the family … the magazine of geri-ART-trics that teaches you the art of growing old … many long years ahead of you… empty years… what happiness to find a copy in your mailbox every month … speaking book edition for the blind… Braille for the blind and deaf… every month …

  There were tears in his eyes when he looked up. It was dark, a rainy and cold April morning with the wind rattling the window. Raindrops ran down the glass like great, cold tears.

  THE MOTHBALLED SPACESHIP

  I’ll just swing in a bit closer,” Meta said, touching the controls of the Pyrran spacer. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” Jason said resignedly, knowing that a note of caution was close to a challenge to a Pyrran.

  “Let us not be afraid this far away,” Kerk said, as Jason had predicted. Kerk leaned close to look at the viewscreen. “It is big, I’ll admit, three kilometers long at least, and probably the last space battleship existing. But it is over five thousand years old, and we are two hundred kilometers away from it …”

  A tiny orange glow winked into brief existence on the distant battleship, and at the same instant the Pyrran ship lurched heavily. Red panic lights flared on the control panel.

  “How old did you say it was?” Jason asked innocently, and received in return a sizzling look from the now-silent Kerk.

  Meta sent the ship turning away in a wide curve and checked the warning circuitry. “Port fin severely damaged, hull units out in three areas. Repairs will have to be made in null-g before we make a planetfall again.”

  “Very good. I’m glad we were hit,” Jason dinAlt said. “Perhaps now we will exercise enough caution to come out of this alive with the promised five hundred million credits. So set us

  on a course to the fleet commander so we can find out all the grisly bits they forgot to tell us when we arranged this job by jump-space communication.”

  Admiral Djukich, the commander of the Earth forces, was a small man who appeared even smaller before the glowering strength of the Pyrran personality. Shrinking back when Kerk leaned over his desk toward him and spoke coldly. “We can leave now and the Rim Hordes will sweep through this system and that will be the end of you.”

  “No, it will not happen. We have the resources. We can build a fleet, buy ships, but it will be a long and tedious task. Far easier to use this Empire battleship.”

  “Easy?” Jason asked, raising one eyebrow. “How many have been killed attempting to enter it?”

  “Well, easy is perhaps not the correct word. There are difficulties, certain problems … forty-seven people in all.”

  “Is that why you sent the message to Felicity?” Jason asked.

  “Yes, assuredly. Our heavy-metals industry has been purchasing from your planet, that’s how they heard of the Pyr-rans. How less than a hundred of you conquered an entire world. We thought we would ask you to undertake this task of entering the ship.”

  “You were a little unclear as to who was aboard the ship and preventing anyone else from coming near.”

  “Yes, well, that is what you might call the heart of our little problem. There’s no one aboard…” His smile had a definite artificial quality as the Pyrrans leaned close. “Please, let me explain. This planet was once one of the most important in the Empire. Although at least eleven other worlds claim themselves as the first home of mankind, we of Earth are much more certain that we are the original. This battleship seems proof enough. When the Fourth War of Galactic Expansion

  was over, it was mothballed here. Has remained so ever since, unneeded until this moment.”

  Kerk snorted with disbelief. “I will not believe that an unmanned, mothballed ship five millennia old has killed forty-seven people.”

  “I believe it most sincerely,” Jason said. “And so will you as soon as you give it a little thought. Out there is three kilometers of almost indestructible fighting ship. It is propelled by the largest engines ever manufactured—which means the largest spaceship atomic generators as well. And of course the largest guns, the most advanced defensive and offensive weaponry ever conceived. Along with secondary batteries with parallel fail-safe circuitry, battle computers—ahh, you’re smiling at last. A Pyrran dream of heaven—the most destructive single weapon ever conceived. What a pleasure to board a thing like this, to enter the control room, to be in control.”

  Kerk and Meta were grinning happily, eyes misty, nodding their heads in total agreement. Then the smiles faded as he went on. “But this ship has now been mothballed. Everything shut down and preserved for an emergency—everything, that is, except the power plant and the ship’s armament. Part of the mothballing was obviously provision for the ship’s computer to remain on the alert. To guard the ship against meteorites and any other chance encounters in space. In particular against anyone who felt he needed a spare battleship. We were warned off with a single shot. I don’t doubt that it could have blasted us out of space just as easily. If this ship were manned and on the defensive, then nothing could be done about getting near it. Much less entering it. But this is not the case. We must outthink a computer, a machine. While it won’t be easy, it should be possible.” He turned and smiled at Admiral Dju-kich. “We’ll take the job. The price has doubled. It will be one billion credits.”

  “Impossible! The sum is too great; the budget won’t allow …”

  “Rim Hordes, coming closer, bent on rapine and destruction. To stop them you order some spacers from the shipyard; schedules are late—they don’t arrive on time. The Horde fleet descends. They break down this door and here, right in this office blood…”

  “Stop!” the admiral gasped weakly, his face blanched white. A desk commander who had never seen action, as Jason had guessed.

  “The contract is yours—but you have a deadline. Thirty days. One minute after that and you don’t get a deci of a credit. Do you agree?”

  Jason looked up at Kerk and Meta, who with instant warrior’s decisions made their minds up, nodding at the same time.

  “Done,” Jason said. “But the billion is free and clear. We’ll need supplies, aid from your space navy, material and perhaps men as well to back us up. You will supply what we need.”

  “It could be expensive,” Admiral Djukich groaned, chewing at his lower lip. “Blood…” Jason whispered, and the admiral broke into a fine sweat as he reluctantly agreed.

  “I’ll have the papers drawn up. When can you begin?”

  “We’ve begun. Shake hands on it and we’ll sign later.” He pumped the admiral’s weak hand enthusiastically. “Now, I don’t suppose you have anything like a manual that tells us how to get into the ship?”

  “If we had that we wouldn’t have called you here. We have gone to the archives and found nothing. All the facts we did discover are on record and available to you—for what they are worth.”

  “Not much if you killed forty-seven volunteers. Five thousand years is a long time, and even the most efficient bureaucracy loses things over that kind of distance. And of course the one thing you cannot mothball are instructions how to un-

  mothball a ship. But we will find a way! Pyrrans never quit, never. If you will have the records sent to our quarters, my colleagues and I will now withdraw and make our plans for the job. We shall beat your deadline.”

  “How?” Kerk asked as soon as the door of their apartment had closed behind them.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Jason admitted, smiling happily at their cold scowls. “Now, let us pour some drinks and put our thinking caps on. This is a job that may end up needing brute force, but it will have to begin with man’s intellectual superiority over the machines he has invented. I’ll take a large one with ice if you are pouring, darling.”

  “Serve yourself,” Meta snapped. “If you had no idea how we were to proceed, why did you accept?”

  Glass rattled against glass and strong beverage gurgled. Jason sighed. “I accepted because it is a chance for us to get some ready cash, which the budget is badly in need of. If we can’t crack into the damn thing, then all we have lost is thirty days of our time.”

  He drank and remembered the hard-learned lesson that reasoned argument was usually a waste of time with Pyrrans and that there were better ways to quickly resolve a situation. “You people aren’t scared of this ship, are you?”

  He smiled angelically at their scowls of hatred, the sudden tensing of hard muscles, the whine of the power holsters as their guns slipped toward their hands, then slid back out of sight.

  “Let us get started,” Kerk said. “We are wasting time and every second counts. What do we do first?”

  “Go through the records, find out everything we can about a ship like this. Then find a way in.”

  “I fail to see what throwing rocks at that ship can do,” Meta said. “We know already that it destroys them before they get close. It is a waste of time. And now you want to waste food as well, all those animal carcasses …”

  “Meta, my sweet—shut up. There is method to the apparent madness. The navy command ship is out there with radar beeping happily, keeping a record of every shot fired, how close the target was before it was hit, what weapon fired the shot, and so forth. There are thirty spacers throwing spatial debris at the battleship in a steady stream. This is not the usual thing that happens to a mothballed vessel and it can only have interesting results. Now, in addition to the stone-throwing, we are going to launch these sides of beef at our target, each spacegoing load of steak to be wrapped with twenty kilos of armilon plastic. They are being launched on different trajectories with different speeds. If any one of them gets through to the ship, we will know that a man in a plastic space suit made of the same material will get through as well. Now, if all that isn’t enough burden on the ship’s computer, a good-sized planetoid is on its way now in an orbit aimed right at our mothballed friend out there. The computer will either have to blow it out of space—which will take a good deal of energy. Or if it is possible it may fire up the engines. Anything it does will give us information, and any information will give us a handle to grab the problem with.”

  “First side of beef on the way,” Kerk announced from the controls where he was stationed. “I cut some steaks off while we were loading them; have them for lunch. We have a freezer-ful now. Prime cuts only—from every carcass, maybe a kilo each. Won’t affect the experiment.”

  “You’re turning into a crook in your old age,” Jason said.

  “I learned everything I know from you. There goes the first one.” He pointed to a tiny blip of fire on the screen. “Flare powder on each, blows up when they hit. Another one. They’re getting closer than the rocks—but they’re not getting through.”

  Jason shrugged. “Back to the drawing board. Let’s have the

  steaks and a bottle of wine. We have about two hours before the planetoid is due. That is an event we want to watch.”

  The expected results were anticlimactic to say the least. Millions of tons of solid rock that had been put into collision orbit at great expense, as Admiral Djukich was fond of reminding them, soared majestically in from the black depths of space. The battleship’s radar pinged busily. As soon as the computer had calculated the course, the main engines fired briefly. The planetoid flashed by the ship’s stern and continued on into interstellar space.

  “Very dramatic,” Meta said in her coldest voice.

  “We gained information!” Jason was on the defensive. “We know the engines are still in good shape and can be activated at a moment’s notice.”

  “And of what possible use is that information?” Kerk asked.

  “Well, you never know. Might come in handy …”

  “Communication control to Pyrrus One. Can you read me?”

  Jason was at the radio instantly, flicking it on. “This is Pyrrus One. What is your message?”

  “We have received a signal from the battleship on the 183.4 wavelength. Message is as follows. ‘Nederuebla al navigacio centre Kroniku ci tio sangon …’ “

  “I cannot understand it,” Meta said.

  “It’s Esperanto, the old Empire language. The ship simply sent a change-of-course instruction to navigation control. And we know its name now, the Indestructible.”

  “Is this important?”

  “Is it!” Jason yipped with joy as he set the new wavelength into the communication controls. “Once you get someone to talk to you, you have them half-sold. Ask any salesman. Now, absolute silence, if you please, while I practice my best and most military Esperanto.” He drained his wineglass, cleared his throat, and turned the radio on.

  “Hello, Indestructible, this is Fleet Headquarters. Explain unauthorized course change.”

  “Course change authorized by instructions 590-L to avoid destruction.”

  “Your new course is a navigational hazard. Return to old course.”

  Silent seconds went by as they watched the screen—then the purple glow of a thrust drive illuminated the battleship’s bow.

  “You did it!” Meta said happily, giving Jason a loving squeeze that half-crushed his rib cage. “It’s taking orders from you. Now tell it to let us in.”

  “I don’t think it is going to be that easy—so let me sneak up on the topic in a roundabout way.”

  He spoke Esperanto to the computer again. “Course change satisfactory. State reasons for recent heavy expenditure of energy.”

  “Meteor shower. All meteors on collision orbit were destroyed.”

  “It is reported that your secondary missile batteries were used. Is this report correct?”

  “It is correct.”

  “Your reserves of ammunition will be low. Resupply will be sent.”

  “Resupply not needed. Reserves above resupply level.”

  “Argumentative for a computer, isn’t it?” Jason said, his hand over the microphone. “But I shall pull rank and see if that works.

  “Headquarters overrides your resupply decision. Resupply vessel will arrive your cargo port in seventeen hours. Confirm.”

  “Confirmed. Resupply vessel must supply override mothball signal before entering two-hundred-kilometer zone.”

  “Affirmative, signal will be sent. What is current signal?”

  There was no instant answer—and Jason raised crossed fingers as the silence went on for almost two seconds.

  “Negative. Information cannot be supplied.”

  “Prepare for memory check of override mothball signal. This is a radio signal only?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “This is a spoken sentence.”

  “Negative.”

  “This is a coded signal.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Pour me a drink,” Jason said with the microphone off. “This playing twenty questions may take some time.”

  It did. But patient working around the subject supplied, bit by bit, more of the needed information. Jason turned off the radio and passed over the scribbled sheet.

  “This is something at least. The code signal is a ten-digit number. If we send the correct number, all the mothballing activity stops instantly and the ship is under our control.”

  “And the money is ours,” Meta said. “Can our computer be programmed to send a series of numbers until it hits on the right one?”

  “It can—and just the same thought crossed my mind. The Indestructible thinks that we are running a communications check and tells me that it can accept up to seven hundred signals a second for repeat and verification. Our computer will read the returned signal and send an affirmative answer to each one. But of course all the signals will be going through the discrimination circuits, and if the correct signal is sent, the mothball defenses will be turned off.”

  “That seems like an obvious trick that would not fool a five-year-old,” Kerk said.