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Thunderhead

by Keith Laumer

1

It was a small room, with an uneven floor, exposed, hand-hewn ceiling beams, a rough fieldstone fireplace. There was furniture: a narrow bunk, a table, a bookcase, straight-backed chairs, all meticulously dusted. A pot of sickly snow-flowers stood in the center of the table. A thick quartz window in a vacuum-tight alloy frame was set in the south wall—a salvaged DV port from a deep-space liner. The view through the window was of black night, whirling snowflakes, a moonlit mountain peak thrusting up towards the sprawling configuration of the constellation Angina Doloris.

Beside the window, a compact Navy issue WFP transmitter was set up on a small gray-metal desk. The man standing before it was tall, wide-shouldered, with graying hair, still straight-backed, but thickening through the body now. He studied the half-dozen instrument faces, then seated himself, began noting their readings in a worn notebook. As he worked, the teen-aged boy who stood beside him watched intently.

“I’ve been working on my Blue codes, Lieutenant Carnaby,” the lad was saying. “I’ll bet I could pass the Academy exam now. ” His eager tone changed. “You s’pose I’ll ever get the chance, Lieutenant?”

“Sure, Terry,” Carnaby said. His voice was deep, husky. “A Navy ship’s bound to call here, any time now. ”

The boy stood by as Carnaby depressed the tape key which would send the recorded call letters of the one-man station flashing outward as a shaped wavefront, propagated at the square of the speed of light.

“Lieutenant,” the boy said, “every night you send out your call. How come you never get an answer?”

Carnaby shook his head. “I don’t know, Terry.

Maybe they’re too busy fighting the Djann to check in with every little JN beacon station on the Outline. ”

“You said after five years they were supposed to come back and pick you up,” the boy persisted. “Why—”

There was a sharp, wavering tone from the round, wiremesh covered speaker. A dull red light winked on, blinked in a rapid flutter, settled down to a steady glow. The audio signal firmed to a raucous buzz.

“Lieutenant!” Terry blurted. “Something’s coming in!”

Swiftly, Carnaby thumbed the big S-R key to RECEIVE, flipped the selector lever to UNSC, snapped a switch tagged RCD.

“… riority, to all stations,” a voice faint with distance whispered through a rasp and crackle of star-static. “Cincsec One-two-oh to… Cincfleet Nine… serial one-oh-four… stations copy… Terem Aldo… Terem… pha… this… message… two… Part One…”

“What is it, Lieutenant?” The boy’s voice broke with excitement.

“A Fleet Action signal,” Carnaby said tensely. “An all-station, recorded. I’m taping it; if they repeat it a couple of times, I’ll get it all. ”

They listened, heads close to the speaker grille; the voice faded and swelled. It reached the end of the message, began again: “Red priority… tions… incsec One-two…”

The message repeated five times; then the voice ceased. The wavering carrier hum went on another five seconds, cut off. The red light winked out. Carnaby flipped over the SEND key, twisted the selector to VOC-SQ.