Vietnam 1971 Remembering the 101st Then and Now 1st Edition Jim Cheskawich
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Praise for Vietnam 1971
Remembering The 101st Then
And Now
“After reading the book I am now not ashamed of what I did. I am also proud to say I am a Viet Nam Vet. I did what my country asked me to do. Thank you for helping me to come to terms with this.”
Steve Exline, Vietnam Veteran.
“Everyone should write a story like this. It is a part of Americana that’s missing. This book may be the new gold standard for Vietnam books—from someone who has read them all. Every Vietnam Vet should have this book and it should be in the PX at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.”
Fred Monahan, Past National Commander, Legion of Valor, U.S. Marines, Vietnam Veteran.
“The Vietnam War era was a very difficult period for those of us who lived through it. Some of us believed we best served the country by supporting the war, others by serving in the war, or still others by protesting the war through peaceful means. We need to move past all of that now and hopefully we have learned significant lessons to help us avoid repeating history. Many, many casualties resulted from the war and some soldiers and their families are still bearing the burden of a war’s cost. Those who died or are still a Prisoner of War or Missing in Action must not be forgotten. Lives, careers, families, and dreams that were lost, destroyed, or disrupted cannot be fully assessed or valued. Jim’s book captures the spirit of the times but doesn’t assess blame. It is more a forward looking memoir necessary for the continued healing of a country and individuals. It’s a non-gory book that is a very good read.”
Russ
Knapp, Vietnam War Protester.
“My brother Tommy was drafted in the Spring of 1968, despite his status as a young married and a full time student. He had no military nature, being the easy-going and low key type. I do not know why he chose to not resist the draft, as my older brother had done. He just gave in and went to Vietnam and died six months later.
I have, to some degree, never fully recovered from his death. I also have an Uncle on my Mom’s side, whom I never met. He served in the Calgary Highlanders and fell in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy in June 1944. He is buried in France.
Two different wars, as vastly different as night and day. I dealt with my brother’s death by heading full force into the peace movement in my youth ( I was 15 when my brother was killed) and while the peace movement gave a vent for my emotions, it did nothing to make the pain go away. Humans still behave badly, all over the place.
Except for the sincere following of faith in God and seeking the reason for human existence, war is the huge shaping structure of all of human history. I would imagine there have been thousands of wars on every continent, both large and small.
At nearly age 64, I work now part time in a library. As a writer myself and an inveterate researcher and curious girl, I see many many books with stories of one conflagration after another, the staggering toll of humans arguing with one another on the field of battle. The civilian population is always in the middle and suffers a blow from all sides.
If I did not have faith in God and His Son Jesus Christ, I could not have continued through my life. Despite my wanderings, I know there is a purpose to life and I fervently pray I will see my dear brother again when I have left this world. Many sincere thanks to Mr. Cheskawich for making the effort to write this important book and to share his personal experiences in serving in Vietnam. I believe only a fellow veteran can understand what someone went through in any war.”
Wendy E. Williams, On-Line Researcher, Writer/Author.
“Dear Jim, I had tears in my eyes while working with you on your book. You have humanized the War for me. Thank you.”
Vicki Weiland, Editor, Vietnam 1971; Editor, Rex: The Blizzard King.
“I thank you for the respectful way that you treated my poem.”
Mike Viehman, Author, “Visit to the Wall.”
“For someone like me who was fortunate enough to have a student deferment during the draftable portion of the Viet Nam War, this book is just what I have needed all these years! I never wanted to be involved with the war, except of course for some student demonstrations in the spring of 1970, so I have always felt a little guilty that I never served my country during that time. I got to graduate on a Saturday and start my full time 40-year government job the very next Monday. No disrupted life for me! This book allows me to understand so much more! The author took me there with him. This book is so real and fascinating. I loved every part of it! The author has a gift telling his story!
You know the feeling you get when watching certain movies where you just forget totally about your own life and then you are affected by it for many days thereafter. This book did that for me. Just a great read!”
Dave Sage, Meteorologist and Photographer.
“After reading your book on your Vietnam experience it brought back memories of the music, media and the culture of that era. It reminded me of the friends and relatives that served during the war and helped me to better understand the trials and difficulties of not just being there, but also of facing the harsh realities they confronted with coming home. On a personal note it made me think of my son Zach who spent 5 combat tours in Iraq and returned to a world here at home that was very difficult for him to adjust to. Zach would open up at times to me, but he really relied on his brothers and sisters that he served with to understand and counsel him. Jim has written an excellent book that I thoroughly enjoyed.”
Randy Martinez, Educator, Football and Softball Coach; father of an Iraq Combat Warrior.
“As a combat Veteran who served two tours in a ‘Search and Rescue’ Unit in North Vietnam, rescuing or assisting in the rescue of what I recall as nine U.S. Navy pilots shot down while on bombing runs over North Vietnam, I appreciate and thank you, Jim, for your Service, and for sharing your experience in Vietnam 1971, your well-written book about Remembering The 101st Then And Now.”
Jim Weiland, USN 1965-1967.
“Growing up the Vietnam Conflict was all around me—yet it never ‘touched’ me. My much older brother-in-law survived his tour and was home by the time I was 10. I recall images on the nightly news of young American boys fighting in an unrecognizable tangle of jungles an elusive enemy in defense of an even more elusive objective. American Boys—and they were just boys, some too young to vote— had their once potentially noble destinies undermined and dreams crushed because they couldn’t or wouldn’t dodge the draft. They were all sacrificial lambs sent to slaughter or be slaughtered. I remember it as being extremely unpopular. I remember the protests. I remember the universal chants for peace. I remember my Father, a WWII veteran, being outraged over the protests. He possessed an unflinching loyalty to his beloved country. To him, the protesters and draft dodgers were traitors. All Americans knew,
hated and wanted to avenge the villains of WWII. But who were the Viet Cong? What did they do to or how were they threatening us? It was all such a mystery. I remember being relieved when the conflict —this costly and undeclared war—was resolved before any of my high school friends were drafted. But, as horrific and senseless as this conflict was, I was too young, too lucky and too protected to have it ruin my childhood and early adulthood. I got to fulfill my dreams and live happily ever after.
Vietnam 1971 is a captivating and honestly written memoir of a soldier—a son of a World War II veteran and a boy much too young, too naïve and too American to question his family’s and country’s expectations. It is the author’s insightful, poignant and noble treatise about how, through grit, ingenuity, good common sense and humor, he managed to survive a nightmarish experience and learn enough about human nature, protocol and politics to survive the aftermath. It is a heroic effort.
I never got the chance to learn about this conflict in high school — thank you, Jim, for your perspective and for the history lesson. Your exquisitely personal account ‘touched’ me. Your story is a brilliant testament to what was both good and bad about the 1960s and early 1970s.” Annie Reid, Artist and Professional Legal Work.
“I have started reading your manuscript and enjoyed it. My unit in Vietnam, the 192nd Assault Helicopter Company, was part of the First Aviation Brigade but we supported the 3rd BN, 506th, 101st.
Most of my flying time in Vietnam was working for the 3/506th at Phan Thiet.”
Jim Schueckler, Founder and President, www.VirtualWall.org, Ltd. The Virtual Wall ™
“After successfully surviving multiple deployments to various theatres of operations overseas and struggling each time to transition once getting back home, one clear message will forever resonate from my experiences. It is not about what I have done or seen, it is about our brothers in arms who didn’t get the opportunity to come home. By not only sharing our stories and putting our experiences into words, we are honoring the fallen and are giving them the opportunity to live once again. No one shared those precious moments with them like we did and to not keep their story alive is to fail in honoring their existence and sacrifice. This book as well as our memories are a testament to preserving those who made the ultimate sacrifice, ‘lest we forget.’ Thank you once again, Mr. Cheskawich.” Anonymous, as requested.
“I was very moved by Jim Cheskawich’s memoir about Vietnam. It gave a new perspective on the Vietnam War and it proved that ‘good’ can come out of any experience, even war. I had always ‘kept my distance’ from the subject of Vietnam but I found myself riveted to Jim’s observations and I enjoyed all his personal anecdotes from his unusual vantage point of being a soldier in an ‘office.’
I am glad that Jim Cheskawich has told his story and if it was therapeutic for him to write, it will be therapeutic for others to read. I hope other Vietnam Vets and their families and friends will read this book. I recommend it.”
Minette Siegel, Photographer and Media Consultant. Former Partner in The Studio of David Inocencio/Minette Siegel (multimedia filmmakers). Image Director for Vietnam 1971 and Rex, The Blizzard King.
“My time in Viet Nam changed the way I would look at life forever. We were young flight attendants assigned to work on military charter (MAC) flights taking troops home from the war zone, or returning them from leave between Saigon and Travis Air Force Base in Northern California. Some were lucky to be going home for good. Often, the hot rainy and windy weather turned our sky rides into a formidable roller-coaster with beverages plastering themselves onto the ceiling. Listening to the GI’s laugh and enjoy the hard ride always gave me a sense of pride that they were certainly brave souls. Sometimes a look on a face will tell you all you need to know—that war is hell and the best you can do is talk about life back home to help them forget. ‘Yes, the A’s won the pennant,’ or ‘Yes, you saw the Miami Dolphins win the Super Bowl.’
Once we were ordered off the plane in haste as Intelligence had it that a North Vietnamese offensive was on the way to Saigon. Ushered onto a team of small helicopters (Hueys) we could see the enemy troops in the jungle below looking up and shooting at us. Some of the bullets were hitting the Huey and causing a loss of fuel, but, thankfully, we made it to the intended airfield on fumes. All I could think of was how awful it would be to crash in the jungle and face the enemy, if we did survive. What about the brave soldiers who face it every day? Seeing war up-close and personal, my heart changed forever, knowing what is at stake to save civilian lives like mine. Someone must go into that dense jungle facing death or torture! Do any of us deserve their bravery, ever?
I saw anti-war demonstrations at home, and yes we all wanted it to end, but not at the expense of treating the military personnel so badly as people trying to make them feel they were ‘outcasts’ from society just for being in Viet Nam. It was their turf, not ours. That jungle made people crazy and the war drug out too long, but, eventually, we began taking civilians out of Saigon as well. The fear on their faces was telling, many pleading with us to take more of them on board, and trying to pay us to hide them in the closets and restrooms. We refused to be paid. No more can I say. Babies must be held on laps during take-off and landing. With seven flight attendants, you have seven laps, but I never said that. What Manifest? In the early Spring of 1975, I was on one of the last Trans America Airlines flights out of Saigon, light on luggage and heavy on precious cargo, with pilots with big hearts. Knowing what happened to those we left behind, I will always wish we had won. I believe the Viet Nam Memorial had to happen. It should have been sooner. Soldiers don’t start wars; they just go to finish them. You never forget the faces of war or the brave hearts that try so hard to do their job. The least I could do is be kind.”
Judith
Gail Lund, Senior Flight Attendant, Trans America Airlines, TIA/TAA, Oakland and New York, 1969 to 1978.
“I was a college student at U.C. Berkeley and many of us there thought we ‘could change the world.’ I personally was tired of my friends coming home in ‘body bags’ when there seemed to be no reason for it. One night in 1967, my boyfriend and I decided to join a March to close down the Oakland (California) Army Induction Center. Knowing we would be up all night, we took ‘speed’ to stay awake. We were some of the first to arrive and ended up at the head of the crowd, feeling alive and powerful. Directly across the intersection, the police began to amass, clothed in their riot gear, billy clubs and all.
We waited all night and into the early morning, blocking the building. Then with no warning, the police began to move toward us very fast, forming a ‘V-shape’ into the crowd, swinging their clubs. Like Moses parting the Sea, we were forced up against the building, being struck many times, running the gauntlet. After this, many kept at it. I didn’t. Didn’t feel so powerful after all!
This memoir about the war in Vietnam should be read by Veterans and their families and friends, as the War affected all of us, and a lot of healing has not begun.”
Kitty Hastings,
Photographer.
“Dear Jim, it seems like we just ‘Facebooked’ the other day. I must go back to see what I said about Vietnam and how I felt about the nightmare our troops endured.
My most-clear memory (and it was like it was yesterday!) was the low-key manner in which our soldiers were sent to Vietnam. The protesters seemed to capture all of the headlines. It was disgraceful and I felt so sad for this ‘understated War,’ lack of preparation, lack of weaponry and supplies . . . I often felt they were fighting with one hand tied behind their back!
Actually, this whole period of the Vietnam War seemingly exuded a LACK OF SUPPORT for our men and women in harm’s way. What a debacle. It was even worse upon their return. The stories told and revolved around ‘the questionable’ tactics of our guys: how the children were killed, villages burned and blown-up . . . no mention of what our troops had to endure. Yes, I understand security . . . it was, HOWEVER, a very lopsided and poorly planned, entry and exit. We did not receive our returning soldiers with support (physically or emotionally), honor, or distinction.
My heart is heavy when I reflect. The longer I continue reflecting on this period, the more I feel myself getting agitated. And, I KNOW Vietnam Vets—some have been the parents of my students, some I
see on the street and it is heartbreaking, Jim!!! Some were friends from high school who served in Vietnam, and, of course, Jim, some did not return.
BLESS your heart Jim Cheskawich, and Rex, The Blizzard King (the Book, and the Dog, whom you credit) for inspiring this project. THANK YOU for YOUR Service. I appear to lack the ‘just right’ words to honor you and your splendid creativity.”
Lindy Ward, Educator and Samoyed Owner.
“Vietnam: 1971 is an interesting story about one person’s tour of duty in a country thousands of miles from his personal comfort zone where he had lived most of his life. As a young draftee, fresh out of college, the author is challenged to instantly shift gears and adapt to a new, military based culture, totally different from one that he has ever experienced. Prior to the Vietnam conflict, most wars could be rationalized away in that they were fought over the age-old principle of good vs. evil. With Vietnam, for some, that was never quite clear and toward the end, there was little actual support for continuing the effort, with seemingly little chance of a clear-cut victory.
Jim Cheskawich focuses on one person’s journey through his military obligation and what it was like to spend a year “in-country” at a place that absolutely no one could call home. He brings the reader along with him on his journey and helps open up a world to us that most have never experienced. The author goes on to describe how he was able to successfully return to civilian life after military service, to enroll in graduate school and to achieve positions of responsibility in the Federal sector. He also mentions his ability to “shift gears” and enter a whole new world of competitive dog breeding and showing. At the end, I found it to be a good read.”
David and Marion Gustafson.
Author on vacation in Florida in 2016, with a “screaming eagle” that has landed!
Phu Bai, South Vietnam, 1971.
Shown are the storage facilities and the large helicopter pad
for the 101st Airborne Division. Multiple helicopters can be seen on and around the launch pad area.
“Camp Campbell,” Phu Bai, South Vietnam, 1971.
“Most would agree that Vietnam was a highly unpopular war and that strong disagreements exist even today—50 years later—on both personal and U.S. policy levels. At the urging of fellow Vietnam Vets, my editor, and the teachers and school students I now work with, it is time to put down in writing what the War meant to me and how it changed my life.
I know where I came from, won’t forget my roots, and cannot speak for anyone but myself.” — Jim Cheskawich
Vietnam 1971: Remembering The “101st” Then And Now
Copyright © 2016 by Jim Cheskawich
LCCN: 2016957765
Developmental Editing and Design: Vicki Weiland
Text Editing and Proofreading: Jim Cheskawich
Image Director: Minette Siegel
Illustrated Maps: Brad Johnson
Manager, Book Layout and Interior Design: Desta Garrett Book Design
Book Formatting and Transfer Design: Kristie Kempker, Visually Speaking
Front Cover Photo: “Hueys on a Combat Air Assault,” by Randy Parmley (Charlie Company, C/2/506th, c1970–71)
www.company-c--2nd-bn-506th-inf.com
Front Cover Photo: “Vietnam Memorial Wall” by Tamara Somerville, 2013
Vietnam Wall Memorial Sculptures by Glenna Goodacre (Nurses with Injured Soldier)
and Frederick Hart (Three Soldiers) Photographs by Carl Gernazio.
With deepest appreciation to Judy Collins, her team of Erin Bockman and Katherine DePaul at rockymountainproductionsinc.com and Troy Schreck on behalf of Alfred Publishing Company for permission to use the lyrics of Sons of by Gerard Jouannest, Jacques Roman Brel, Eric Blau and Mort Shuman. ©1968 (Renewed) Editions Pouchenel, S.P.R.L. and
Unichappell Music Inc. All Rights Administered by Unichappell Music Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Also thanks and appreciation to Lorraine Goonan, The Image Works, NY, for making available ETPM0272986 and ENVO0756655. Also, Catharine Giordano from “Stars and Stripes.”
Thanks also to Elise Gochberg and Marlous Fehr of Friesens.
And to Bob Dylan, the greatest songwriter and singer who spoke for our generation, and his team of Jeff Rosen and Callie Gladman, for permission to use the lyrics to All Along the Watchtower.
Also to the late Muhammad Ali and his staff for photo of Muhammad Ali - Sonny Liston.
And to Baron Wolman for his portraits of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan.
A portion of the proceeds of this book will go to Penn State University’s Veterans Special Needs Endowment Scholarship.
Website to contact author: www.101stvietnam.com
Rex the Blizzard King Stories, LLC
ISBN 978-0-9883640-3-5
Introduction
SOARING WITH EAGLES IN THE GREAT BEYOND
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"Slow!" she exclaimed. "When you planned the whole Skylark of Valeron and nobody knows what else, in five hours?"
"Yes, dear, slow Remember when we first met our dear departed friend Eight, back in the original Skylark? You saw him materialize exact duplicates of each of our bodies, clear down to the molecular structures of our chemistry, in less than one second, from a cold, standing start. Compared to that job, the one I have just done is elementary. It took me over five hours—he could have done it in nothing flat.
"However, don't let it bother you too much. I'll never be able to equal their speed, since I'll not live enough millions of years to get the required practice, but our being material gave us big advantages in other respects that Mart isn't mentioning because, as usual, he is primarily concerned with our weaknesses—yes? No?"
"Yes; I will concede that being material does yield advantages which may perhaps make up for our slower rate of thinking," Crane at last conceded.
"Hear that? If he admits that much, you know that we're as good as in, right now," Seaton declared. "Well, while our new brain is finishing itself up, we might as well go back to the hall and chase the Chlorans back where they belong—the Brain worked out the equations for me this morning."
From the ancient records of Valeron, Radnor and the Bardyle had secured complete observational data of the cataclysm, which had made the task of finding the present whereabouts of the Chlorans' original sun a simple task. The calculations and computations involved in the application of forces of precisely the required quantities to insure the correct final orbit were complex in the extreme; but, as Seaton had foretold, they had presented no insurmountable difficulties to the vast resources of the Brain.
Therefore, everything in readiness, the two Terrestrial scientists surrounded the inimical planet with a zone of force, so that it would lose none of its heat during the long journey; and with a stasis of time, so that its people would not know of anything that was happening to them. They then erected force-control stations around it, adjusted with such delicacy and precision that they would direct the planet into the exact orbit it had formerly occupied around its parent sun. Then, at the instant of correct velocity and position, the control stations would go out of existence and the forces would disappear
As the immense ball of dazzlingly opaque mirror which now hid the unwanted world swung away with ever-increasing velocity, the Bardyle, who had watched the proceedings in incredulous wonder, heaved a profound sigh of relaxation.
"What a relief—what a relief!" he exclaimed.
"How long will it take?" asked Dorothy curiously.
"Quite a while—something over four hundred years of our time. But don't let it gnaw on you—they won't know a thing about it. When the forces let go they'll simply go right on, from exactly where they left off, without realizing that any time at all has lapsed—in fact, for them, no time at all shall have lapsed. All of a sudden they will find themselves circling around a different sun, that's all.
"If their old records are clear enough they may be able to recognize it as their original sun and they'll probably do a lot of wondering as to how they got back there. One instant they were in a certain orbit around this sun here, the next instant they will be in another orbit around an entirely different sun! They'll know, of course, that we did it, but they'll have a sweet job figuring out how and what we did— some of it is really deep stuff. Also, they will be a few hundred years off in their time, but since nobody in the world will know it, it won't make any difference."
"How perfectly weird!" Dorothy exclaimed. "Just think of losing a four-hundred-year chunk right out of the middle of your life and not even knowing it!"
"I would rather think of the arrest of development," meditated Crane. "Of the opportunity of comparing the evolution of the planets already there with that of the returned wanderer."
"Yeah, it would be interesting—'sa shame we won't be alive then," Seaton responded, "but in the meantime we've got a lot of work to do for ourselves. Now that we've got this mess straightened out I think we had better tell these folks good-by, get into Two, and hop out to where Dot's Skylark of Valeron is going to materialize."
The farewell to the people of Valeron was brief, but sincere.
"This is in no sense good-by," Crane concluded. "By the aid of these newly discovered forces of the sixth order there shall soon be worked out a system of communication by means of which all the inhabited planets of the Galaxies shall be linked as closely as are now the cities of any one world."
Skylark Two shot upward and outward, to settle into an orbit well outside that of Valeron. Seaton then sent his projection back to the capital city, fitted over his imaged head the controller of the inner brain, and turned to Crane with a grin.
"That's timing it, old son—she finished herself up less than an hour ago. Better cluster around and watch this, folks, it's going to be good."
At Seaton's signal the structure which was to be the nucleus of the new space traveler lifted effortlessly into the air its millions of tons of dead weight and soared, as lightly as little Two had done, out into the airless void. Taking up a position a few hundred miles away from the Terrestrial cruiser, it shot out a spherical screen of force to clear the ether of chance bits of débris. Then inside that screen there came into being a structure of gleaming inoson, so vast in size that to the startled onlookers it appeared almost of planetary dimensions. "Good heavens—it's stupendous!" Dorothy exclaimed. "What did you boys make it so big for—just to show us you could, or what?"
"Hardly! She's just as small as she can be and still do the work. You see, to find our own Galaxy we will have to project a beam to a distance greater than any heretofore assigned diameter of the universe, and to control it really accurately its working base and the diameter of its hour and declination-circles would each have to be something like four light-years long. Since a ship of that size is of course impracticable, Mart and I did some figuring and decided that with circles one thousand kilometers in diameter we could chart Galaxies accurately enough to find the one we're looking for—if you think of it, you'll realize that there are a lot of hundredth-millimeter marks around the circumference of circles of that size—and that they would probably be big enough to hold a broadcasting projection somewhere near a volume of space as large as that occupied by the Green System. Therefore we built the Skylark of Valeron just large enough to contain those thousand-kilometer circles."
As Skylark Two approached the looming planetoid the doors of vast airlocks opened. Fifty of those massive gates swung aside before her and closed behind her before she swam free in the cool, sweet air and bright artificial sunlight of the interior. She then floated along above an immense, grassy park toward two well-remembered and beloved buildings.
As the tiny ship approached, the doors of vast airlocks opened.
"Oh, Dick!" Dorothy squealed. "There's our house—and Cranes! It's funny though to see them side by side. Are they the same inside, too —and what's that funny little low building between them?"
"They duplicate the originals exactly, except for some items of equipment which would be useless here. The building between them is the control room, in which are the master headsets of the Brain and its lookouts. The Brain itself is what you would think of as underground—inside the shell of the planetoid."
The small vessel came lightly to a landing and the wanderers disembarked upon the close-clipped, springy turf of a perfect lawn. Dorothy flexed her knees in surprise.
"How come we aren't weightless, Dick?" she demanded. "This gravity isn't—can't be—natural. I'll bet you did that, too!"
"Mart and I together did, sure. We learned a lot from the intellectuals and a lot more in hyperspace, but we could neither derive the fundamental equations nor apply what knowledge we already had until we finished this sixth-order outfit. Now, though, we can give you all the gravity you want—or as little—whenever and wherever you want it."
"Oh, marvelous—this is glorious, boys!" Dorothy breathed. "I have always just simply despised weightlessness. Now, with these houses and everything, we can have a perfectly wonderful time!"
"Here's the dining room," Seaton said briskly. "And here's the headset you put on to order dinner or whatever is appropriate to the culinary department. You will observe that the kitchen of this house is purely ornamental—never to be used unless you want to."
"Just a minute, Dick," Dorothy's voice was tensely serious. "I have been really scared ever since you told me about the power of that Brain, and the more you tell me of it the worse scared I get. Think of the awful damage a wild, chance thought would do—and the more an ordinary mortal tries to avoid any thought the surer he is to think it, you know that. Really, I'm not ready for that yet, dear—I'd much rather not go near that headset."
"I know, sweetheart," his arm tightened around her. "But you didn't let me finish. These sets around the house control forces which are capable of nothing except duties pertaining to the part of the house in which they are. This dining-room outfit, for instance, is exactly the same as the Norlaminian one you used so much, except that it is much simpler.
"Instead of using a lot of keyboards and force-tubes, you simply think into that helmet what you want for dinner and it appears. Think that you want the table cleared and it is cleared—dishes and all simply
vanish. Think of anything else you want done around this room and it's done—that's all there is to it.
"To relieve your mind I'll explain some more. Mart and I both realized that that Brain could very easily become the most terrible, the most frightfully destructive thing that the universe has ever seen. Therefore, with two exceptions, every controller on this planetoid is of a strictly limited type. Of the two master controls, which are unlimited and very highly reactive, one responds only to Crane's thoughts, the other only to mine. As soon as we get some loose time we are going to build a couple of auxiliaries, with automatic stops against stray thoughts, to break you girls in on—we know as well as you do, Red-Top, that you haven't had enough practice yet to take an unlimited control."
"I'll say I haven't!" she agreed feelingly. "I feel lots better now—I'm sure I can handle the rest of these things very nicely."
"Sure you can. Well, let's call the Cranes and go into the control room," Seaton suggested. "The quicker we get started the quicker we'll get done."
Accustomed as she was to the banks and tiers of keyboards, switches, dials, meters, and other operating paraphernalia of the control rooms of the previous Skylark, Dorothy was taken aback when she passed through the thick, heavily insulated door into that of the Skylark of Valeron. For there were four gray walls, a gray ceiling, and a rugged gray floor. There were low, broad double chairs and headsets. There was nothing else.
"This is your seat, Dottie, here beside me, and this is your headset— it's just a visiset, so you can see what is going on, not a controller," he hastened to reassure her. "You have a better illusion of seeing if your eyes are open, that's why everything is neutral in color. But better still for you girls, we'll turn off the lights."
The illumination, which had seemed to pervade the entire room instead of emanating from any definite sources, faded out; but in spite of the fact that the room was in absolute darkness Dorothy saw with a clarity and a depth of vision impossible to any Earthly eyes. She saw at one and the same time, with infinite precision of detail, the houses and their contents; the whole immense sphere of the planetoid, inside and out; Valeron and her sister planets encircling their sun; and the stupendous full sphere of the vaulted heavens.
She knew that her husband was motionless at her side, yet she saw him materialize in the control room of Skylark Two. There he seized the cabinet which contained the space chart of the Fenachrone—that library of films portraying all the Galaxies visible to the wonderfully powerful telescopes and projectors of that horrible race.
That cabinet became instantly a manifold scanner, all its reels flashing through as one. Simultaneously there appeared in the air above the machine a three-dimensional model of all the Galaxies there listed. A model upon such a scale that the First Galaxy was but a tiny lenticular pellet, although it was still disproportionately large; upon such a scale that the whole vast sphere of space covered by the hundreds of Fenachrone scrolls was compressed into a volume but little larger than a basketball. And yet each tiny Galactic pellet bore its own peculiarly individual identifying marks.
Then Dorothy felt as though she herself had been hurled out into the unthinkable reaches of space. In a fleeting instant of time she passed through thousands of star clusters, and not only knew the declination, right ascension, and distance of each Galaxy, but saw it duplicated in miniature in its exact place in an immense, threedimensional model in the hollow interior of the space-flyer in which she actually was.
The mapping went on. To human brains and hands the task would have been one of countless years. Now, however, it was to prove only a matter of hours, for this was no human brain. Not only was it reactive and effective at distances to be expressed in light-years or parsecs: because of the immeasurable sixth-order velocity of its carrier wave it was equally effective at distances of thousands upon
thousands of light—millionia—reaches of space so incomprehensibly vast that the rays of visible light emitted at the birth of a sun so far away would reach the point of observation only after that sun had lived through its entire cycle of life and had disappeared.
"Well, that's about enough of that for you, for a while," Seaton remarked in a matter-of-fact voice. "A little of that stuff goes a long ways at first—you have to get used to it."
"I'll say you do! Why—I—it—" Dorothy paused, even her ready tongue at a loss for words.
"You can't describe it in words—don't try," Seaton advised. "Let's go outdoors and watch the model grow."
To the awe, if not to the amazement of the observers, the model had already begun to assume a lenticular pattern. Galaxies, then, really were arranged in general as were the stars composing them; there really were universes, and they really were lenticular—the vague speculations of the hardiest and most exploratory cosmic thinkers were being confirmed.
For hour after hour the model continued to grow and Seaton's face began to take on a look of grave concern. At last, however, when the chart was three fourths done or more, a deep-toned bell clanged out the signal for which he had been waiting—the news that there was now being plotted a configuration of Galaxies identical with that portrayed by the space chart of the Fenachrone.
"Gosh!" Seaton sighed hugely. "I was beginning to be afraid that we had escaped clear out of our own universe, and that would have been bad—very, very bad, believe me! The rest of the mapping can wait—let's go!"
Followed by the others he dashed into the control room, threw on his helmet, and hurled a projection into the now easily recognizable First Galaxy. He found the Green System without difficulty, but he could not hold it. So far away it was that even the highest amplification and the greatest power of which the gigantic sixth-order installation was capable could not keep the viewpoint from leaping erratically, in
fantastic bounds of hundreds of millions of miles, all through and around its objective.
But Seaton had half expected this development and was prepared for it. He had already sent out a broadcasting projection; and now, upon a band of frequencies wide enough to affect every receiving instrument in use throughout the Green System and using power sufficient to overwhelm any transmitter, however strong, that might be in operation, he sent out in a mighty voice his urgent message to the scientists of Norlamin.
XXII.
In the throne room of Kondal, with its gorgeously resplendent jeweled ceiling and jeweled metallic-tapestry walls, there were seated in earnest consultation the three most powerful men of the planet Osnome—Roban and Karfedix [1] , Dunark the Kofedix [2] , and Tarnan the Karbix [3] . Their "clothing" was the ordinary Osnomian regalia of straps, chains, and metallic bands, all thickly bestudded with blazing gems and for the most part supporting the full assortment of devastatingly powerful hand weapons without which any man of that race would have felt stark naked. Their fierce green faces were keenly hawklike; the hard, clean lines of their bare green bodies bespoke the rigid physical training that every Osnomian undergoes from birth until death.
"Father, Tarnan may be right," Dunark was saying soberly. "We are too savage, too inherently bloodthirsty, too deeply interested in killing, not as a means to some really worth-while end, but as an end in itself. Seaton the overlord thinks so, the Norlaminians think so, and I am beginning to think so myself. All really enlightened races look upon us as little better than barbarians, and in part I agree with them. I believe, however, that if we were really to devote ourselves to study and to productive effort we could soon equal or surpass any race in the System, except of course the Norlaminians."
"There may be something in what you say," the emperor admitted dubiously, "but it is against all our racial teachings. What, then, of an outlet for the energies of all manhood?"
"Constructive effort instead of destructive," argued the Karbix. "Let them build—study—learn—advance. It is all too true that we are far behind other races of the System in all really important things."
"But what of Urvan and his people?" Roban brought up his last and strongest argument. "They are as savage as we are, if not more so. As you say, the necessity for continuous warfare ceased with the destruction of Mardonale, but are we to leave our whole planet defenseless against an interplanetary attack from Urvania?"
"They dare not attack us," declared Tarnan, "any more than we dare attack them. Seaton the overlord decreed that the people of us two first to attack the other dies root and branch, and we all know that the word of the overlord is no idle, passing breath."
"But he has not been seen for long. He may be far away and the Urvanians may decide at any time to launch their fleets against us. However, before we decide this momentous question I suggest that you two pay a visit of state to the court of Urvan. Talk to Urvan and his Karbix as you have talked to me, of coöperation and of mutual advancement. If they will coöperate, we will."
During the long voyage to Urvania, the third planet of the fourteenth sun, however, their new ardor cooled perceptibly—particularly that of the younger man—and in Urvan's palace it became clear that the love of peaceful culture inculcated upon those fierce minds by contact with more humane peoples could not supplant immediately the spirit of strife bred into bone and fiber during thousands of generations of incessant warfare.
For when the two Osnomians sat down with the two Urvanians the very air seemed charged with animosity. Like strange dogs meeting with bared fangs and bristling manes, Osnomian and Urvanian alike fairly radiated hostility Therefore Tarnan's suggestions as to coöperation and understanding were decidedly unconvincing, and were received with open scorn.
"Your race may well wish to coöperate with ours," sneered the Emperor of Urvania, "since, but for the threats of that self-styled overlord, you would have ceased to exist long since. And how do we know where that one is, what he is doing, whether he is paying any attention to us? Probably you have learned that he has left this System entirely and have already planned an attack upon us. In selfdefense we shall probably have to wipe out your race to keep you from destroying ours. At any rate your plea is very evidently some underhanded trick of your weak and cowardly race—"
"Weak! Cowardly! Us? You conceited, bloated toad!" stormed Dunark, who had kept himself in check thus far only by sheer power of will. He sprang to his feet, his stool flying backward. "Here and
now I demand a meeting of honor, if you know the meaning of the word honor."
The four enraged men, all drawing weapons, were suddenly swept apart, then clutched and held immovably as a figure of force materialized among them—the form of an aged, white-bearded Norlaminian.
The four enraged men, all drawing weapons, were suddenly swept apart.
"Peace, children, and silence!" the image commanded sternly. "Rest assured that there shall be no more warfare in this System and that the decrees of the overlord shall be enforced to the letter. Calm yourselves and listen. I know well, mind you, that none of you really meant what has just been said. You of Osnome were so impressed by the benefits of mutual helpfulness that you made this journey to further its cause; you of Urvania are at heart also strongly in favor of it, but neither of you has strength enough or courage enough to admit it.
"For know, vain and self-willed children, that it is weakness, not strength, which you have been displaying. It may well be, however, that your physical bravery and your love of strife can now be employed for the general good of all humanity. Would you join hands, to fight side by side in such a cause?"
"We would," chorused the four, as one.
Each was heartily ashamed of what had just happened, and was glad indeed of the opportunity to drop it without losing face.
"Very well! We of Norlamin fear greatly that we have inadvertently given to one of the greatest foes of universal civilization weapons equal in power to the overlord's own, and that he is even now working to undo all that had been done. Will you of Osnome and you of Urvania help in conducting an expedition against that foe?"
"We will!" they exclaimed.
Dunark added: "Who is that enemy, and where is he to be found?"
"He is Dr. Marc C. DuQuesne, of Earth."
"DuQuesne!" barked Dunark. "Why, I thought the Fenachrone killed him! But we shall attend to it at once—when I kill any one he stays killed!"
"Just a moment, son," the image cautioned. "He has surrounded Earth with defenses against which your every arm would be entirely impotent. Come you to Norlamin, bringing each of you one hundred
of his best men. We shall have prepared for you certain equipment which, although it may not enable you to emerge victorious from the engagement, will at least insure your safe return. It might be well also to stop at Dasor, which is not now far from your course of flight, and bring along Sacner Carfon, who will be of great assistance, being a man both of action and of learning."
"But DuQuesne!" raved Dunark, who realized immediately what must have happened. "Why didn't you ray him on sight? Didn't you know what a liar and a thief he is, by instinct and training?"
"We had no suspicion then who he was, thinking, as did you, that DuQuesne had passed. He came under another name, as Seaton's friend. He came as one possessing knowledge, with fair and plausible words. But of that we shall inform you later. Come at once —we shall place upon your controls forces which shall pilot you accurately and with speed."
Upon the aqueous world of Dasor they found its amphibious humanity reveling in an activity which, although dreamed of for centuries, had been impossible of realization until the Skylark had brought to them a supply of Rovolon, the metal of power. Now cities of metal were arising here and there above her waves, airplanes and helicopters sped through and hovered in her atmosphere, barges and pleasure craft sailed the almost unbroken expanse of ocean which was her surface, immense submarine freighters bored their serenely stolid ways through her watery depths.
Sacner Carfon, the porpoiselike, hairless, naked Dasorian councilor, heaved his six and a half feet of height and his five hundredweight of mass into Dunark's vessel and greeted the Osnomian prince with a grave and friendly courtesy.
"Yes, friend, everything is wonderfully well with Dasor," he answered Dunark's query. "Now that our one lack, that of power, has been supplied, our lives can at last be lived to the full, unhampered by the limitations which we have hitherto been compelled to set upon them. But this from Norlamin is terrible news indeed. What know you of it?"
During the trip to Norlamin the three leaders not only discussed and planned among themselves, but also had many conferences with the Advisory Five of the planet toward which they were speeding, so that they arrived upon that ancient world with a complete knowledge of what they were to attempt. There Rovol and Drasnik instructed them in the use of fifth-order forces, each according to his personality and ability.
To Sacner Carfon was given high command, and he was instructed minutely in every detail of the power, equipment, and performance of the vessel which was to carry the hope of civilization. To Tarnan, the best balanced of his race, was given a more limited knowledge. Dunark and Urvan, however, were informed only as to the actual operation of the armament, with no underlying knowledge of its nature or construction.
"I trust that you will not resent this necessary caution," Drasnik said carefully. "Your natures are as yet essentially savage and bloodthirsty; your reason is all too easily clouded by passion. You are, however, striving truly, and that is a great good. With a few mental operations, which we shall be glad to give you at a later time, you shall both be able to take your places as leaders in the march of your peoples toward civilization."
Fodan, majestic chief of the Five, escorted the company of warriors to their battleship of space, and what a ship she was! Fully twice the size of Skylark Three in every dimension she lay there, surcharged with power and might, awaiting only her commander's touch to hurl herself away toward distant and now inimical Earth.
But the vengeful expedition was too late by far. DuQuesne had long since consolidated his position. His chain of interlinked power stations encircled the globe. Governments were in name only. World Steel now ruled the entire Earth and DuQuesne's power was absolute. Nor was that rule as yet unduly onerous. The threat of war was gone, the tyranny of gangsterism was done, everybody was
working for high wages—what was there to kick about? Some men of vision of course perceived the truth and were telling it, but they were being howled down by the very people they were trying to warn.
It was thus against an impregnably fortified world that Dunark and Urvan directed every force with which their flying superdreadnought was armed. Nor was she feeble, this monster of the skyways, but DuQuesne had known well what form the attack would take and, having the resources of the world upon which to draw, he had prepared to withstand the amassed assault of a hundred such vessels—or a thousand.
Therefore the attack not only failed; it was repulsed crushingly. For from his massed generators DuQuesne hurled out upon the Norlaminian space ship a solid beam of such incredible intensity that in neutralizing its terrific ardor her store of power-uranium dwindled visibly, second by second. So rapidly did the metal disappear that Sacner Carfon, after waging the unequal struggle for some twenty hours, put on high acceleration and drove back toward the Central System, despite the raging protests of Dunark and of his equally tempestuous fellow lieutenant.
And in his private office, which was also a complete control room, DuQuesne smiled at Brookings—a hard, thin smile. "Now you see," he said coldly. "Suppose I hadn't spent all this time and money on my defenses?"
"Well, why don't you go out and chase 'em? Give 'em a scare, anyway?"
"Because it would be useless," DuQuesne stated flatly. "That ship carries more stuff than anything we have ready to take off at present. Also, Dunark does not scare. You might kill him, but you can't scare him—it isn't in the breed."
"Well, what is the answer, then? You have tried to take Norlamin with everything you've got—bombs, automatic ships, and projectors—and you haven't got to first base. You can't even get through their outside screens. What are you going to do—let it go on as a stalemate?"
"Hardly!" DuQuesne smiled thinly "While I do not make a practice of divulging my plans, I am going to tell you a few things now, so that you can go ahead with more understanding and hence with greater confidence. Seaton is out of the picture, or he would have been back here before this. The Fenachrone are all gone. Dunark and his people are unimportant. Norlamin is the only known obstacle between me and the mastery of the Galaxy, therefore Norlamin must either be conquered or destroyed. Since the first alternative seems unduly difficult, I shall destroy her."
"Destroy Norlamin—how?" The thought of wiping out that world, with all its ancient culture, did not appall—did not even affect—Brookings' callous mind. He was merely curious concerning the means to be employed.
"This whole job so far has been merely a preliminary toward that destruction," DuQuesne informed him levelly. "I am now ready to go ahead with the second step. The planet Pluto is, as you may or may not know, very rich in uranium. The ships which we are now building are to carry a few million tons of that metal to a large and practically uninhabited planet not too far from Norlamin. I shall install driving machinery upon that planet and, using it as a projectile which all their forces cannot stop, I shall throw Norlamin into her own sun."
Raging but impotent, Dunark was borne back to Norlamin; and, more subdued now but still bitterly humiliated, he accompanied Urvan, Sacner Carfon, and the various Firsts to a consultation with the Five.
As they strolled along through the grounds, past fountains of flaming color, past fantastically geometric hedges intricately and ornately wrought of noble metal, past walls composed of self-luminous gems so moving as to form fleeting, blending pictures of exquisite line and color, Sacner Carfon eyed Drasnik in unobtrusive signal and the two dropped gradually behind.
"I trust that you were successful in whatever it was you had in mind to do while we set up the late diversion?" Carfon asked quietly, when
they were out of earshot.
Dunark and Urvan, his fierce and fiery aids, had taken everything that had happened at its face value, but not so had the leader Unlike his lieutenants, the massive Dasorian had known at first blast that his expedition against DuQuesne was hopeless. More, it had been clear to him that the Norlaminians had known from the first that their vessel, enormous as she was and superbly powerful, could not crush the defenses of Earth.
"We knew, of course, that you would perceive the truth," the First of Psychology replied as quietly "We also knew that you would appreciate our reasons for not taking you fully into our confidence in advance. Tarnan of Osnome also had an inkling of it, and I have already explained matters to him. Yes; we succeeded. While DuQuesne's whole attention was taken up in resisting your forces and in returning them in kind, we were able to learn much that we could not have learned otherwise. Also, our young friends Dunark and Urvan, through being chastened, have learned a very helpful lesson. They have seen themselves in true perspective for the first time; and, having fought side by side in a common and so far as they knew a losing cause, they have become friends instead of enemies. Thus it will now be possible to inaugurate upon those two backward planets a program leading toward true civilization."
In the Hall of the Five the Norlaminian spokesman voiced thanks and appreciation for the effort just made, concluding:
"While as a feat of arms the expedition may not have been a success, in certain other respects it was far from being a failure. By its help we were enabled to learn much, and I can assure you now that the foe shall not be allowed to prevail—it is graven upon the sphere that civilization is to go on."
"May I ask a question, sir?" Urvan was for the first time in his bellicose career speaking diffidently. "Is there no way of landing a real storming force upon Earth? Must we leave DuQuesne in possession indefinitely?"
"We must wait, son, and work," the chief answered, with the fatalistic calm of his race. "At present we can do nothing more, but in time—"
He was interrupted by a deafening blast of sound—the voice of Richard Seaton, tremendously amplified.
"This is the Skylark calling Rovol of Norlamin—Skylark calling Rovol of Norlamin—" it repeated over and over, rising to a roar and diminishing to a whisper as Seaton's broadcaster oscillated violently through space.
Rovol laid a beam to the nearest transmitter and spoke: "I am here, son. What is it?"
"Fine! I'm away out here in—"
"Hold on a minute, Dick!" Dunark shouted. He had been humble and sober enough since his return to Norlamin, realizing as he never had before his own ignorance in comparison with the gigantic minds about him, the powerlessness of his entire race in comparison with the energies he had so recently seen in action. But now, as Seaton's voice came roaring in and Rovol and his brain-brother were about to indulge so naïvely and so publicly in a conversation which certainly should not reach DuQuesne's ears, his spirits rose. Here was something he could do to help.
"DuQuesne is alive, has Earth completely fortified, and is holding it against everything we can give him," Dunark went on rapidly. "He's got everything we have, maybe more, and he's undoubtedly listening to every word we're saying. Talk Mardonalian—I know for a fact that DuQuesne can't understand that. They've got an educator here and I'll give it to Rovol right now—all right, go ahead."
"I'm clear out of the Galaxy," Seaton's voice went on, now speaking the language of the Osnomian race which had so recently been destroyed. "So many Galaxies away that none of you except Orlon could understand the distance. The speed of transmission is due to the fact that we have perfected and I am using a sixth-order projector, not a fifth. Have you a ship fit for really long-distance flight —as big as Three was, or bigger?"
"Yes; we have a vessel twice her size."
