The Burning Bridge

The Burning Bridge, by Poul
William Anderson

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Title: The Burning Bridge
Author: Poul William Anderson
Illustrator: van Dongen
Release Date: September 9, 2007 [EBook #22554]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Illustration]

THE BURNING BRIDGE
BY POUL ANDERSON
Illustrated by van Dongen
Usually there are two "reasons" why something is done; the reason
why it needs to be done, and, quite separate, the reason people want to
do it. The foul-up starts when the reason-for-wanting is satisfied ... and
the need remains!
The message was an electronic shout, the most powerful and
tightly-beamed short-wave transmission which men could generate,
directed with all the precision which mathematics and engineering
could offer. Nevertheless that pencil must scrawl broadly over the sky,
and for a long time, merely hoping to write on its target. For when
distances are measured in light-weeks, the smallest errors grow
monstrous.
As it happened, the attempt was successful. Communications Officer
Anastas Mardikian had assembled his receiver after acceleration
ceased--a big thing, surrounding the flagship Ranger like a spiderweb
trapping a fly--and had kept it hopefully tuned over a wide band. The
radio beam swept through, ghostly faint from dispersion, wave length
doubled by Doppler effect, ragged with cosmic noise. An elaborate
system of filters and amplifiers could make it no more than barely
intelligible.
But that was enough.
Mardikian burst onto the bridge. He was young, and the months had not
yet devoured the glory of his first deep-space voyage. "Sir!" he yelled.
"A message ... I just played back the recorder ... from Earth!"
Fleet Captain Joshua Coffin started. That movement, in weightlessness,
spun him off the deck. He stopped himself with a practiced hand,
stiffened, and rapped back: "If you haven't yet learned regulations, a

week of solitary confinement may give you a chance to study them."
"I ... but, sir--" The other man retreated. His uniform made a loose
rainbow splash across metal and plastic. Coffin alone, of all the fleet's
company, held to the black garments of a space service long extinct.
"But, sir," said Mardikian. His voice seemed to have fallen off a high
cliff. "Word from Earth!"
"Only the duty officer may enter the bridge without permission," Coffin
reminded him. "If you had anything urgent to tell, there is an intercom."
"I thought--" choked Mardikian. He paused, then came to the free-fall
equivalent of attention. Anger glittered in his eyes. "Sorry, sir."
Coffin hung quiet a while, looking at the dark young man in the
brilliant clothes. Forget it, he said to himself. Times are another. You
went once to e Eridani, and almost ninety years had passed when you
returned. Earth was like a foreign planet. This is as good as spacemen
get to be nowadays, careless, superstitious, jabbering among each
other in languages I don't understand. Thank God there are any
recruits at all, and hope He will let there continue to be a few for what
remains of your life.
The duty officer, Hallmyer, was tall and blond and born in Lancashire;
but he watched the other two with Asian eyes. No one spoke, though
Mardikian breathed heavily. Stars filled the bow viewport, crowding a
huge night.
Coffin sighed. "Very well," he said. "I'll let it pass this time."
After all, he reflected, a message from Earth was an event. Radio had,
indeed, gone between Sol and Alpha Centauri, but that was with very
special equipment. To pinpoint a handful of ships, moving at half the
speed of light, and to do it so well that the comparatively small receiver
Mardikian had erected would pick up the beam--Yes, the boy had some
excuse for gladness.

"What was the signal?" Coffin inquired.
He expected it would only be routine, a test, so that engineers a lifetime
hence could ask the returning fleet whether their transmission had
registered. (If there were any engineers by then, on an Earth sinking
into poverty and mysticism.)
Instead, Mardikian blurted: "Old Svoboda is dead. The new
Psychologics Commissioner is Thomas ... Thomson ... that part didn't
record clearly ... anyway, he must be sympathetic to the
Constitutionalists. He's rescinded the educational decree--promised
more consideration to provincial mores. Come hear for yourself, sir!"
Despite himself, Coffin whistled. "But that's why the e Eridani colony
was being founded," he said. His words fell flat