"No! It's--" Something happened to his throat.
She watched him for a moment. "You won't be back from Coar. You've _got_
to speak to them."
He nodded. This wasn't going according to plan; he'd intended it to be
brief and controlled. Damn it, he told himself, I'm Admiral of the
Fleets; I've no right to feelings like this. He straightened, and knew
he looked right when the two sleepy stares occupied the screen.
Their hair was stiff and stubborn like his own, so that they wore it
cropped in the same military cut. It could have stood a brush right now.
They were quiet, knowing enough of what was wrong to be frightened.
He spoke carefully. "I'm going to Coar to talk to them about stopping
the war. I want you to look after things while I'm away. All right?"
"All right, Dad." The older one was putting on a brave front for the
benefit of the younger and his mother, but the tears showed.
As Tulan cut the connection he saw that Anatu's eyes were moist too, and
realized with surprise that he'd never before, in all the years, seen
her cry. He watched the last faint images fade from the screen.
* * * * *
Sometime near dawn he gave up trying to sleep, dressed, and began
composing orders. Presently Jezef came in with cups of steaming amber
liquid. They sipped in silence for a while, then Jezef asked "You've
heard about Grefen?"
Tulan felt something knot inside him. He shook his head, dreading what
he knew was coming.
"He killed himself last night," Jezef said.
Tulan remembered the agony in the old Minister of War's eyes when he'd
voted for surrender. Grefen had been Admiral in his day; the prototype
of integrity and a swift sledgehammer in a fight; and Tulan's first
combat had been under him. A symbol of the Fleet, Tulan reflected; and
his death, yes, that too was a symbol--what was there but shame in
surrender, for a man or a fleet or a world?
His hand clenched, crumpling the paper it was resting on. He smoothed
the paper and re-read the order he'd been writing. He visualized the
proud ranks of his crewmen, reduced to ragged lines shuffling toward
prison or execution.
It seemed impossible, against the laws of nature, that men should strive
mightily and win, then be awarded the loser's prize. His anger began to
return. "I've a mind to defy the Government and only take skeleton
crews," he said. "Leave the married men, at least."
Jezef shrugged. "They'd only be bundled into transports and sent after
us."
"Yes. Damn it, I won't be a party to it! All they did was carry out
their orders, and superbly, at that!"
Jezef watched him with something like curiosity. "You'd disobey the
Council? You?"
Tulan felt himself flush. "I've told you before, discipline's a
necessity to me, not a religion!" Nevertheless, Jezef's question wasn't
unfair; up to now it really hadn't occurred to him that he might
disobey.
His inward struggle was brief. He grabbed the whole pad of orders and
ripped them across. "What's the Council, with Grefen gone, but three
trembling old men? Get some guns manned, in case they get suspicious and
try to interfere."
Blood began to surge faster in his veins; he felt a vast relief. How
could he have ever seen it differently? He jabbed at a button. "All
ships' Duty Officers; scramble communication circuits. This is the
Admiral. Top Secret Orders...."
* * * * *
Shortly before noon the four-hundred-odd ships lifted out of Sennech's
frosty atmosphere, still ignoring the furious demands from the radio.
Fully armed, they couldn't be stopped.
Tulan's viewer gave a vivid picture of the receding fifth planet. The
white mantle of ice and snow was a backdrop for blue artificial lakes
and the dark green of forest-strips (hardy conifers from Teyr)
alternated with the lighter shades of surface farms. The ice had been
almost unbroken until men came, bringing more heat than Sennech had ever
received from a far-off sun.
That had been before the First Solar War, when Teyr (the race of Aum had
originated there) ruled. That awful struggle had bludgeoned the home
planet back to savagery, and left Coar and Sennech little better off.
With recovery, Coar had taken over and prospered immensely. Teyr stayed
wild except for small colonies planted there by the other two planets,
and Sennech lagged for a while.
Within Tulan's lifetime his world had found itself ready to rise against
the lax but profit-taking rule of Coar, and that rebellion had grown
into the present situation.
Sennech's wounds were plainly visible in the viewscreen; great man-made
craters spewing incandescent destruction blindly over farm, city, or
virgin ice. The planet was in three-quarters phase from here, and Tulan
could see the flecks of fire in the darkness beyond the twilight zone.
Near the edge of that darkness he made out the dimmer, diffused glow of
Capitol City, where Anatu would be giving two small boys their supper.
He checked altitude, found they were free of the atmosphere, and ordered
an acceleration that would take them halfway to the sun in fifty hours.
It was uncomfortable now, with Sennech's gravity added, but that would
fall off fast.
Jezef hauled himself in and dropped to a pad. "I wish I had your build,"
he said. "Do you really think we can pull this off?"
Tulan, in a good mood, grinned at him. "Have I ever led you into defeat
yet, pessimist?"
"No; and more than once I'd have bet ten to one against us. That's why
the Fleet fights so well for you; we have the feeling we're following a
half-god. Gods, however, achieve defeats as terrible as their
victories."
Tulan laughed and sat down beside Jezef with some charts. "I think I'll
appoint you Fleet Poet. Here's the plan. No one knows what I intend; we
could be on our way around the sun to overtake Coar and either fight or
surrender, or we might be diving into the sun in a mass suicide. That's
why I broke off the siege and pulled all units away from Coar; the fact
that they're coming back around to meet us will suggest something like
that."
"Are they going to join up?"
"No; I want them on this side of the sun but behind us. I have a use for
them later that depends on their staying hidden. Incidentally, I'm
designating them Group Three.
"In a few hours we're going to turn hard, this side of the sun, and
intercept Teyr. I want to evacuate our forces from the moon, then decoy
whatever the enemy has there into space where we can get at them. That's
their last fleet capable of a sortie, and with that gone we can combine
our whole strength and go around to Coar. She'll probably give up
immediately, on the spot."
* * * * *
Jezef thought it over. "Will they be foolish enough to leave the moon?
As long as they're safely grounded there, they constitute a
fleet-in-being and demand attention."
"We'll give them a reason to move, then ambush them. Right now we've a
lot of reorganizing to do, and I want you to get it started. We're
splitting this Force into Groups One and Two. Here's what I want."
* * * * *
They cut drives and drifted in free fall while supplies were transferred
between ships, then Tulan held an inspection and found crews and
equipment proudly shipshape. Despite the proliferating rumors, morale
was excellent.
A few hours later the realignment began. Space was full of the
disc-shapes; thin, delicate-looking Lights with their projecting
external gear, and thicker, smoothly armored Mediums and Heavies. He had
twenty-three of the latter in Group One, with twice as many Mediums and
a swarm of smaller craft.
Group Two, composed of the supply ships and a small escort, was already
formed and diverging away. That was a vital part of his plan. From a
distance they'd look to telescope or radar like a full combat fleet.
He was almost ready to swerve toward the third planet and its moon, but
first he had a speech to make. It was time to squash all the rumors and
doubts with a dramatic fighting announcement.
He checked his appearance, stepped before the scanner, and nodded to
Communications to turn it on. "All hands," he said, then waited for
attention.
The small monitor screens showed a motley sampling of intent faces. He
permitted himself a tight smile. "You know I have orders to surrender
the Fleet." He paused for effect. "Those are the orders of the Council
of Four, and to disobey the Council would be unthinkable.
"Yet it is also unthinkable that a single ship of the Fleet should
surrender under any circumstances, at any time; therefore I am faced
with a dilemma in which tradition must be broken.
"The Council of Four has lost courage, and so, perhaps, have many of the
people of Sennech. We have ways of knowing that the people of Coar, far
more than our own, clamor at their government for any sort of peace.
"Coar's fleets are smashed and the remnants have fled from space.
"Clearly, courage has all but vanished from the Solar System; yet there
is one place where courage has not wavered. That place is in the Fleet
of Sennech.
"At this moment we are the only strength left in the Solar System. We
dominate the System!
"Would we have history record that the Fleet won its fight gloriously,
then cravenly shrank back from the very brink of victory?
"We left Sennech fully armed, though our orders were directly opposite.
I need not tell you that I have made the decision any man of the Fleet
would make.
"This is our final campaign. Within a short time we shall orbit Coar
herself and force her surrender. That is all."
There was a moment so quiet that the hum of the circuits grew loud, then
the monitors shook with a mighty cheer.
Later, alone, Jezef congratulated him amusedly. "They are certainly with
you a hundred percent now, if there was any doubt before. Yet there was
one argument you didn't even hint at; the strongest argument of all."
"What was that?"
"Why, you're offering them a chance at life and freedom, where they
might be going to imprisonment or execution."
That irritated Tulan. "I'm sure you're not so cynical about Fleet
loyalty and tradition as you pretend," he said stiffly. "I wouldn't
affront the men by using that kind of an argument."