The Misplaced Battleship | Page 2

the records in shape. They have been needing reorganization
for quite a while."
Inskipp opened his mouth, made a choking noise, then closed it. He
undoubtedly realized that any interruption would only lengthen my
explanation, not shorten it. I smiled and nodded at his decision, then
continued.
[Illustration]
"So you thought you had me safely out of the way. Breaking my spirit
under the guise of 'giving me a little background in the Corps'
activities.' In this sense your plan failed. Something else happened
instead. I nosed through the files and found them most interesting.
Particularly the C & M setup--the Categorizer and Memory. That
building full of machinery that takes in and digests news and reports
from all the planets in the galaxy, indexes it to every category it can
possibly relate, then files it. Great machine to work with. I had it
digging out spaceship info for me, something I have always been
interested in--"
"You should be," Inskipp interrupted rudely. "You've stolen enough of
them in your time."
I gave him a hurt look and went on--slowly. "I won't bore you with all
the details, since you seem impatient, but eventually I turned up this
plan." 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 the
blueprints. "This is an ordinary heavy-cargo and passenger job. It's no
more 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 plans
with the League Registry, do you? But, as I said, I know more than a
little bit about ships. It seemed to me this thing was just too big for the
use intended. Enough old ships are fuel-wasters, you don't have to build
new ones to do that. This started me thinking and I punched for a
complete 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
attempt at the second galaxy. For all we know she is still on the way.
The other five were all D-class colonizers, built during the Expansion
when large populations were moved. Too big to be practical now.
"I was still teased, as I had no idea what a ship this large could be used
for. So I removed the time interlock on the C & M and let it pick
around through the entire history of space to see if it could find a
comparison. It sure did. Right at the Golden Age of Empire expansion,
the giant Warlord battleships. The machine even found a blueprint for
me."
Inskipp grabbed again and began comparing the two prints. I leaned
over his shoulder and pointed out the interesting parts.
"Notice--if the engine room specs are changed slightly to include this
cargo hold, there is plenty of room for the brutes needed. This
superstructure--obviously just tacked onto the plans--gets thrown away,
and turrets take its place. The hulls are identical. A change here, a shift
there, and the stodgy freighter becomes the fast battlewagon. These
changes could be made during construction, then plans filed. By the
time anyone in the League found out what was being built the ship
would be finished and launched. Of course, this could all be
coincidence--the plans of a newly built ship agreeing to six places with
those of a ship built a thousand years ago. But if you think so, I will
give 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 as
crooked 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 bad
memory from the past?"
"Cittanuvo. Second planet of a B star in Corona Borealis. No other
colonized planets in the system."
"Never heard of it," Inskipp said as we took the private drop chute to
his office. "Which may be a good or a bad sign. Wouldn't be the first
time trouble came from some out-of-the-way spot I never even knew
existed."
With the automatic disregard for others of the truly dedicated, he
pressed the scramble button on his desk. Very quickly sleepy-eyed
clerks and assistants were bringing files and records. We went through
them together.
Modesty prevented me from speaking first, but I had a very short wait
before Inskipp reached the same conclusion I had. He hurled a folder
the length