Way of a Rebel, Page 3

feet, twenty, thirty. At fifty feet,he jabbed a button on the computer, and the engines growled a harderthrust. He kept the northeasterly heading at maximum underwater speed.

  * * * * *

  An hour crept by. He listened for code on the sonar equipment, but heardonly the weird and nameless sea-sounds. He allowed himself a readinglight in the cramped compartment, folded the map-table up from the wall,and studied the coastline of Africa.

  He began to feel a frightening loneliness, although scarcely two hourshad passed since his rebellious decision, and he was accustomed to longweeks alone at sea. He scoffed at himself. He would get along okay; thesub would take him any place he wanted to go, if he could escapepursuit. Surely there must be some part of the world where men were notconcerned with the senseless struggle of the titans. But all such placeswere primitive, savage, almost unendurable to a man born and tuned tothe violin-string pitch of technological culture.

  Mitch realized dismally that he loved technological civilization, itsgiant tools, its roar of mighty engines, its proud structures ofconcrete and steel. He could sacrifice his love for particular people,for particular places and governments--but it was going to be harder torelinquish mechanical civilization for some stone-age culture lingeringin an out-of-the-way place. Changing tribes was easy, for all tribesbelonged to Man, but renouncing machinery for jungle tools would be moredifficult. A man could change his politics, his friends, his religion,his country, but Man's tools were a part of his body. Having used ahigh-powered rifle, the man subsumed the weapon, made it a part ofhimself. Trading it for a stone axe would be like cutting off his arm.Man was a user of tools, a shaper of environments.

  _That was it_, he thought. The reason for his sudden rebellion, thenarrow dividing line between tolerable and insufferable wars. A war thatkilled human beings might be tolerable, if it left most ofcivilizations' industry intact, or at least restorable, for although menmight die, Man lived on, still possessing his precious tools, stillcapable of producing greater ones. But a war that wrecked industry, leftit a tangled jumble of radioactive concrete and steel--that kind of warwas insufferable, as this one threatened to be.

  The idea shocked him. Kill a few men, and you scratch the hide ofHistorical Man. But wreck the industry, drive men out of the cities,leave the factories hissing with beta and gamma radiation, and youamputate the hands of Historical Man the Builder. The machinery ofcivilization was a living body, with organismic Man as its brain. Andthe brain had not yet learned to use the body for a constructivepurpose. It lacked coordination, and the ability to reason its actionsanalytically.

  Was _he_ basing action on analytic reason?

  Another hour had passed. And then he heard it. The sound of faint sonarcommunication. Quickly he nosed upward to twenty feet, throttled back tohalf speed, and raised the periscope. With his face pressed against theeyepiece, he scanned the moonlit ocean in a slow circle. No lights, nosilhouettes against the reflections on the waves.

  He started the pumps and prepared to surface. Then the conning tower wassnorting through the water like a rolling porpoise. He shut off theengines, leaving the sub in utter silence except for the soft wash ofthe sea. He adjusted the sonar pickups, turned the amplifier to maximum,and listened intently. Nothing. Had he imagined it?

  He jabbed a button, and a motor purred, rolling out the retractableradar antenna. Carefully he scanned the sky and sea, watching thegreen-mottled screen for blips. Nothing--no ships or aircraft visible.But he was certain: for a moment he had heard the twitter of underseacommunicators.

  * * * * *

  He sat waiting and listening. Perhaps they had heard his engines,although his own equipment had caught none of their drive-noise.

  The computer was able to supervise several tasks at once, and he set itto continue sweeping the horizon with the radar, to listen for sonarcode and engine purr while he attended to other matters. He readied twotorpedoes and raised a rocket into position for launching. He opened thehatch and climbed to stand in the conning tower again, peering grimlyaround the horizon.

  Minutes later, a buzzer sounded beneath him. The computer had somethingnow. He glanced at the parabolic radar antenna, rearing its head a dozenfeet above him. It had stopped its aimless scanning and was quiveringsteadily on the southeast horizon. _Southeast?_

  He lowered himself quickly into the ship and stared at the luminousscreen. Blips--three blips--barely visible. While he watched, a fourthappeared.

  He clamped on his headsets. There it _was_! The faint engine-noise ofships. His trained senses told him they were subs. Subs out of thesoutheast? He had expected interception from the west--first aircraft,then light surface vessels.

  There was but one possible answer: the enemy.

  He dived for the radio and waited impatiently for the tubes to warmagain. He found himself shouting into the mic.

  "Commsubron Killer, this is Sugar William Niner Zero. Urgent message.Over."

  He was a long way from the station. He repeated the call three times. Atlast a faintly audible voice came from the set.

  "... this is Commsubron Killer. You are ordered to returnimmediately...."

  The voice faded again.

  "Listen!" Mitch bellowed. "Four, no--_five_ enemy submarine--position31 deg.50' North, 73 deg.10' West, proceeding northwest--roughly, towardWashington. Probably carrying an answer to Garson's ultimatum. Get helpout here. Over."

  He heard only a brief mutter this time. "... ordered not to proceedtoward Washington. Return immediately to--"

  "Not me! You fool! Listen! Five--enemy--submarines--" He repeated themessage as slowly as he could, repeated it four times.

  "... reading you S-1," came the fading answer. "Are you in distress? Isay again. Are you in distress? Over."

  Angrily Mitch keyed the carrier wave, screwed the button tightly down,and kicked on the four-hundred cycle modulator. Maybe they could get adirectional fix on his signal and home on it.

  The blips were gone from the radar scope. The subs had spotted him andsubmerged. In a moment he would be catching a torpedo, unless he moved.He started the engines quickly, and the surfaced sub lurched ahead. Henosed her toward the enemy craft and opened the throttle. She knifedthrough the water like a low-running PT boat, throwing a V-shaped fan ofspray. When he reached the halfway point between his own former positionand the place where the enemy submerged, he began jabbing a release atthree second intervals, laying a trail of deadly eggs. He could hear thecrash of the exploding depth-charges behind him. He swung around to makeanother pass.

  Then he saw it--the wet metal hulk rearing up like a massive whale deadahead. They had discovered the insignificance of their lone andpint-sized attacker. They were coming up to take him with deck guns.

  Mitch reversed the engines and swung quickly away. The range was tooclose for a torpedo. The blast would catch them both. He begansubmerging quickly. A sickening blast shivered his tiny craft, and thenanother. He dropped to sixty feet, then knifed ahead.

  God! Why was he doing this? There was no sense in it, if he meant to runaway. But then the thought came: they're returning Old Man Garson'sbig-winded threat. They're bringing a snootful of radiological hell, andthat's the damned bayonet-line across the road.

  * * * * *

  Depth charges were crashing around him as he wove a zig-zag course. Thecomputer was buzzing frantically. Then he saw why. The rocket launcherhadn't retracted; there was still a rocket in it--with a snootful ofUranium 235. The thing was dragging at the water, slowing him down,causing the sub to shudder and lurch.

  Apparently all the subs had surfaced, for the charges were falling onall sides. With the launcher dragging at him, they would get him sooneror later. He tried to nose upward, but the controls refused.

  He knew what would happen if he tried to fire the rocket. Hell, hedidn't have to fire it. All he had to do was fuse it. It had awater-pressure fuse, and he was beneath exploding depth.

&nbs
p; _Don't think about it! Do it!_

  No, you've got to think. That's what's wrong. Too much do, not enoughthink. They're going to wreck mechanical civilization if they keep itup. They're going to wreck Man's tools, cut off his hands, and make himan ape again!

  But what's it to you? What can _you_ do?

  Dammit! You can destroy five _wrong_ tools that were built to wreck the_right_ tools.

  Mitch, who wanted to quit an all-out war, reached for the fusing switch._This_ part was _his_ war; destroy the destroyers, but not theproducers. Even if it didn't make good military sense--

  A close explosion sent him lurching aside. He grabbed at the wall andpushed himself back. The switch--the damn double-toggle _red switch_! Hescreamed a curse and struck at it with both fists.

  There came a beautiful, blinding light.