Dark Benediction

“You’re Space Commander Eli Roki?” she asked in an icy tone.

Again the curt nod. She gazed at him steadily for several seconds. “Colonel Beth will see you in a few minutes.” Then her typewriter began clattering with sharp sounds of hate.

The man sat quietly, motionlessly. The colonel passed through the reception room once and gave him a brief nod. Two majors came in from the corridor and entered the colonel’s office without looking at him. A few moments later, the intercom crackled, “Send Roki in, Dela. Bring your pad and come with him.”

The girl looked at Roki, but he was already on his feet, striding toward the door. Evidently he came from an unchivalrous planet; he opened the door without looking at her and let her catch in when it started to slam.

Chubby, elderly Colonel Beth sat waiting behind his desk, flanked by the pair of majors. Roki’s bearing as he approached and saluted was that of the professional soldier, trained from birth for the military.

“Sit down, Roki.”

The tall space commander sat at attention and waited, his face expressionless, his eyes coolly upon the colonel’s forehead. Beth shuffled some papers on his desk, then spoke slowly.

“Before we begin, I want you to understand something, commander.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are not being tried. This is not a court-martial. There are no charges against you. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

The colonel’s pale eyes managed to look at Roki’s face without showing any contempt. “This investigation is for the record, and for the public. The incident has already been investigated, as you know. But the people are aroused, and we have to make a show of some kind.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Then let’s begin. Dela, take notes, please.” The colonel glanced at the papers before him. “Space Commander Roki, will you please tell us in your own words what happened during patrol flight Sixty-one on fourday sixmonth, year eighty-seven?”

There was a brief silence. The girl was staring at the back of Roki’s neck as if she longed to attack it with a hatchet. Roki’s thin face was a waxen mask as he framed his words. His voice came calm as a bell and clear.

“The flight was a random patrol. We blasted off Jod VII at thirteen hours, Universal Patrol Time, switched on the high-C drive, and penetrated to the ten-thousandth level of the C’th component. We re-entered the continuum on the outer patrol radius at thirty-six degrees theta and two-hundred degrees psi. My navigator threw the dice to select a random course. We were to proceed to a point on the same co-ordinate shell at thirty theta and one-fifty psi. We began—”

The colonel interrupted. “Were you aware at the time that your course would intersect that of the mercy ship?”

The girl looked up again. Roki failed to wince at the question. “I was aware of it, sir.”

“Go on.”

“We proceeded along the randomly selected course until the warp detectors warned us of a ship. When we came in range, I told the engineer to jockey into a parallel course and to lock the automatics to keep us parallel. When that was accomplished, I called the unknown freighter with the standard challenge.”

“You saw its insignia?”

“Yes, sir. The yellow mercy star.”

“Go on. Did they answer your challenge?”

“Yes, sir. The reply, decoded, was: Mercy liner Sol-G-6, departure Sol III, destination Jod VI, cargo emergency surgi-bank supplies, Cluster Request A-4-J.”

Beth nodded and watched Roki with clinical curiosity. “You knew about the Jod VI disaster? That twenty thousand casualties were waiting in Suspendfreeze lockers for those supplies?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry they died.”

“Go on with your account.”

“I ordered the navigator to throw the dice again, to determine whether or not the freighter should be boarded for random cargo inspection. He threw a twelve, the yes-number. I called the freighter again, ordered the outer locks opened. It failed to answer, or respond in any way.”

“One moment. You explained the reason for boarding? Sol is on the outer rim of the galaxy. It doesn’t belong to any cluster system. Primitive place—or regressed. They wouldn’t understand our ways.”

“I allowed for that, sir,” continued the cold-faced Roki. “I explained the situation, even read them extracts of our patrol regs. They failed to acknowledge. I thought perhaps they were out of contact, so I had the message repeated to them by blinker. I know they got it, because the blinker-operator acknowledged the message. Evidently carried it to his superiors. Apparently they told him to ignore us, because when we blinked again, he failed to acknowledge. I then attempted to pull alongside and attach to their hull by magnetic grapples.”

“They resisted?”