The Misplaced Battleship Read online

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  THE MISPLACED BATTLESHIP

  By HARRY HARRISON

  _It might seem a little careless to lose track of something as big as a battleship ... but interstellar space is on a different scale of magnitude. But a misplaced battleship--in the wrong hands!--can be most dangerous._

  Illustrated by Schoenherr

  When it comes to picking locks and cracking safes I admit to no master.The door to Inskipp's private quarters had an old-fashioned tumbler drumthat was easier to pick than my teeth. I must have gone through thatdoor without breaking step. Quiet as I was though, Inskipp still heardme. The light came on and there he was sitting up in bed pointing a .75caliber recoilless at my sternum.

  "You should have more brains than that, diGriz," he snarled. "Creepinginto my room at night! You could have been shot."

  "No I couldn't," I told him, as he stowed the cannon back under hispillow. "A man with a curiosity bump as big as yours will always talkfirst and shoot later. And besides--none of this pussyfooting around inthe dark would be necessary if your screen was open and I could have gota call through."

  Inskipp yawned and poured himself a glass of water from the dispenserunit above the bed. "Just because I head the Special Corps, doesn'tmean that I _am_ the Special Corps," he said moistly while he drainedthe glass. "I have to sleep sometime. My screen is open only foremergency calls, not for every agent who needs his hand held."

  "Meaning I am in the hand-holding category?" I asked with as muchsweetness as I could.

  "Put yourself in any category you please," he grumbled as he slumpeddown in the bed. "And also put yourself out into the hall and see metomorrow during working hours."

  He was at my mercy, really. He wanted sleep so much. And he was going tobe wide awake so very soon.

  "Do you know what this is?" I asked him, poking a large glossy pic underhis long broken nose. One eye opened slowly.

  "Big warship of some kind, looks like Empire lines. Now for the lasttime--go away!" he said.

  "A very good guess for this late at night," I told him cheerily. "It isa late Empire battleship of the Warlord class. Undoubtedly one of themost truly efficient engines of destruction ever manufactured. Over ahalf mile of defensive screens and armament, that could probably turnany fleet existent today into fine radioactive ash--"

  "Except for the fact that the last one was broken up for scrap over athousand years ago," he mumbled.

  I leaned over and put my lips close to his ear. So there would be nochance of misunderstanding. Speaking softly, but clearly.

  "True, true," I said. "But wouldn't you be just a _little_ bitinterested if I was to tell you that one is being built today?"

  Oh, it was beautiful to watch. The covers went one way and Inskipp wentthe other. In a single unfolding, in concerted motion he left thehorizontal and recumbent and stood tensely vertical against the wall.Examining the pic of the battleship under the light. He apparently didnot believe in pajama bottoms and it hurt me to see the goose-bumpsrising on those thin shanks. But if the legs were thin, the voice wasmore than full enough to make up for the difference.

  "Talk, blast you diGriz--_talk_!" he roared. "What is this nonsenseabout a battleship? Who's building it?"

  I had my nail file out and was touching up a cuticle, holding it out forinspection before I said anything. From the corner of my eye I could seehim getting purple about the face--but he kept quiet. I savored my smallmoment of power.

  "Put diGriz in charge of the record room for a while, you said, that wayhe can learn the ropes. Burrowing around in century-old, dusty fileswill be just the thing for a free spirit like Slippery Jim diGriz. Teachhim discipline. Show him what the Corps stands for. At the same time itwill get the records in shape. They have been needing reorganization forquite a while."

  Inskipp opened his mouth, made a choking noise, then closed it. Heundoubtedly realized that any interruption would only lengthen myexplanation, not shorten it. I smiled and nodded at his decision, thencontinued.

  "So you thought you had me safely out of the way. Breaking my spiritunder the guise of 'giving me a little background in the Corps'activities.' In this sense your plan failed. Something else happenedinstead. I nosed through the files and found them most interesting.Particularly the C & M setup--the Categorizer and Memory. That buildingfull of machinery that takes in and digests news and reports from allthe planets in the galaxy, indexes it to every category it can possiblyrelate, then files it. Great machine to work with. I had it digging outspaceship info for me, something I have always been interested in--"

  "You should be," Inskipp interrupted rudely. "You've stolen enough ofthem in your time."

  I gave him a hurt look and went on--slowly. "I won't bore you with allthe details, since you seem impatient, but eventually I turned up thisplan." He had it out of my fingers before it cleared my wallet.

  "What are you getting at?" he mumbled as he ran his eyes over theblueprints. "This is an ordinary heavy-cargo and passenger job. It's nomore a Warlord battleship than I am."

  * * * * *

  It is hard to curl your lips with contempt and talk at the same time,but I succeeded. "Of course. You don't expect them to file warship planswith the League Registry, do you? But, as I said, I know more than alittle bit about ships. It seemed to me this thing was just too big forthe use intended. Enough old ships are fuel-wasters, you don't have tobuild new ones to do that. This started me thinking and I punched for acomplete list of ships that size that had been constructed in the past.You can imagine my surprise when, after three minutes of groaning, the C& M only produced six. One was built for self-sustaining colony attemptat the second galaxy. For all we know she is still on the way. The otherfive were all D-class colonizers, built during the Expansion when largepopulations were moved. Too big to be practical now.

  "I was still teased, as I had no idea what a ship this large could beused for. So I removed the time interlock on the C & M and let it pickaround through the entire history of space to see if it could find acomparison. It sure did. Right at the Golden Age of Empire expansion,the giant Warlord battleships. The machine even found a blueprint forme."

  Inskipp grabbed again and began comparing the two prints. I leaned overhis shoulder and pointed out the interesting parts.

  "Notice--if the engine room specs are changed slightly to include thiscargo hold, there is plenty of room for the brutes needed. Thissuperstructure--obviously just tacked onto the plans--gets thrown away,and turrets take its place. The hulls are identical. A change here, ashift there, and the stodgy freighter becomes the fast battlewagon.These changes could be made during construction, then plans filed. Bythe time anyone in the League found out what was being built the shipwould be finished and launched. Of course, this could all becoincidence--the plans of a newly built ship agreeing to six places withthose of a ship built a thousand years ago. But if you think so, I willgive you hundred-to-one odds you are wrong, any size bet you name."

  I wasn't winning any sucker bets that night. Inskipp had led just ascrooked a youth as I had, and needed no help in smelling a fishy deal.While he pulled on his clothes he shot questions at me.

  "And the name of the peace-loving planet that is building this badmemory from the past?"

  "Cittanuvo. Second planet of a B star in Corona Borealis. No othercolonized planets in the system."

  "Never heard of it," Inskipp said as we took the private drop chute tohis office. "Which may be a good or a bad sign. Wouldn't be the firsttime trouble came from some out-of-the-way spot I never even knewexisted."

  With the automatic disregard for ot
hers of the truly dedicated, hepressed the scramble button on his desk. Very quickly sleepy-eyed clerksand assistants were bringing files and records. We went through themtogether.

  Modesty prevented me from speaking first, but I had a very short waitbefore Inskipp reached the same conclusion I had. He hurled a folder thelength of the room and scowled out at the harsh dawn light.

  "The more I look at this thing," he said, "the fishier it gets. Thisplanet seems to have no possible motive or use for a battleship. Butthey are building one--_that_ I will swear on a stack of one thousandcredit notes as high as this building. Yet what will they do with itwhen they have it built? They have an expanding culture, nounemployment, a surplus of heavy metals and ready markets for all