"You must. First off, Guy, you are a man alone. That might be fine for
you, but life demands that you do your utmost to progress. You know
what will happen."
"Ertene and Terra will fight. Ertene will fight to join the System as
ruling planet, and Terra will fight to haul Ertene in by brute force.
Eventually, Terra will win, partly, and subdue Ertene. Ertene will
reply by swerving outward again, and try to continue on the roaming,
nomad life. As a last measure, Ertene will hit Sol with a vortex. That
will set things off--how, I do not know. Nova, perhaps. Instability,
definitely. Or Ertene will hit Terra with a vortex. At any rate,
super-vortexes will be hurled back and forth, and Ertene--if she isn't
a black ruin--will go on through space with no man alive. Sol will
continue to run as a dead, sterile system.
"So long as they are permitted to fight, complete ruin will be the
outcome. I must ... I MUST prevent that."
"You must," agreed Joan. "You must be ruthless and calloused. You
mustn't hesitate to kill and maim--though it sounds against all nature.
Ertene must be chastened--and Ertene must be brought into the System!
To let Ertene go will constitute a constant threat to Sol--no constant,
but lasting for a hundred years. So long as Ertene can hurl a vortex at
Sol, we are endangered. Ertene must be immobilized, and placed under
the same necessities--those of keeping Sol alive and stable. Terra must
be taught to accept Ertene as an equal.
"And since a three-world system must become interwoven to remain,
Terra, Ertene, and Mars will lose their isolationism. But it's your
job, Guy. You're the only man who understands. You are the only man who
can bring a balance of power to bear. Take it and knit a new system!"
"You'll help?"
Joan smiled. "Naturally." She lifted herself on tiptoe and held him
close. "I've always wanted to help, Guy. Anything you say--name it!"
Guy choked.
"You've"--and Guy recalled years ago when Joan said the same words to
him--"been lonely, Guy."
Years of loneliness and yearning and heartbreak expended themselves in
a matter of minutes, and the long, bitter years dropped away, bringing
them right up to the present moment. Then the future promised briefly
before they broke apart. They regretted the break, though something
unspoken made them stop; they could not seek the future with so much to
be done in the present: They must cross this bridge first.
* * * * *
Gradually, the scene took on a busy appearance. Men in suits bustled
around the ships, and they rang with the sound of repair and servicing.
And across the plain there came a steady stream of men carrying
white-swathed bodies, and when six came in, twelve left to continue
the work. With progressingly larger numbers at work, the stream of
men entering the huge, squat building became a double line, a triple
line, and then a sixfold line. Other buildings opened, and the stream
continued to expand.
Projectors and turret-mounted MacMillans roved the sky and the
detectors went out to their extreme limit.
Technicians worked over Guy's thought-beam, and produced a large one
for each ship in the small group. Maynard's fleet would be knit with
thought-communications, and no interference would cause them to lose
control. Other technicians toyed with the vortex projectors, and though
Guy saw no more success here than on Ertene, the amount of activity
was higher by far, and in a few weeks the Terrans had passed the most
advanced researches of the Ertinians.
A convoy of Terran ships approached, and Guy merely smiled.
"I've been expecting them. Go get 'em, Harrison!"
"Right. They're replacements for this gang?"
"Were."
"Why don't we wake up the gang that was here when you came?"
"You know that. I can't trust 'em. I brought you fellows back--at least
you owe me your lives."
"I'll argue that point when I get back. Ships, supplies, and men! We
need 'em!"
The little fleet sped out to contact the larger convoy. Unlike the
usual Terran procedure, Maynard's fleet spread wide apart, and waited
in the dark of space, behind barriers.
It would have been slaughter again. This convoy expected to find its
own men awaiting supply and materials. Instead, the vortex projectors
spewed.
Out they rolled, and the barriers went down as they passed. Turreted
MacMillans whirled, and the invisible energies laced the sky. Torpedoes
winked in gouts of flame and the interferers chopped the communications
band into uselessness. Maynard's ships fired a second series before
the first reached the Terrans, and the Terrans, fighting their own
velocity, rolled into the whirling toroids firing their AutoMacs to the
last.
Ships rained out of the sky in flaming ruin, cut bright arcs in the
sky, and died.
And then it was all over. Massacre it would have been if the vortex
projectors had been deadly. The Terran convoy was not prepared to meet
a powerful fleet, and it succumbed in a matter of seconds.
Cradling pressors lowered the Terran ships to ground, and Maynard's men
took possession.
"Well?" asked Harrison. "Have we got what it takes?"
"Not enough," said Guy glumly. "There was one constellation craft
in that bunch--the _Leoniad_. It's a creaky old crate that uses
co-ordinator fire in the turrets instead of autosyncs. Her torpedo
tubes are rusty, her generator room reeks, and her drive is one of
those constantly variable affairs that never settles down to a smooth
run. The _Leoniad_ is a derelict, as far as I'm concerned. The smaller
stuff is fine business, though I doubt that they could stand up to a
half dozen constellations. We'll fit the old tub up, though, and use
her. She's all we have in that class."
"Any chance of getting more?"
"Might raid Ertene. I think it might be easy--Ertene is none too sharp
invasionwise. They're armed to the teeth with vortex jobs, though."
"Vortexes aren't deadly."
"A local anaesthetic would be a killer-weapon if you could numb up a
man's trigger finger only," grinned Guy. "Might as well be dead as
sleeping it off on Ertene."
"I get you. How about raiding Sahara Base?"
"We might duck their mounted stuff. I wish I knew what they are doing
with the vortex projectors."
"Let's wake up the commanding officer of the convoy and ask. He'd know."
"Good idea," said Maynard, and gave the order over the phone.
* * * * *
Eventually, the man was brought in. He was indignant, defeated, angry,
and anxious about his future in turns, and his emotions changed from
one to the other swiftly. He was Sector Commander Neville.
"What is the meaning of this outrage?" he asked. "I know you. You're
the renegade, Maynard."
"Stop it!" exploded Harrison. "He is Guy Maynard, and a better man than
you and I, Neville."
"You, too, must have turned pirate, commander."
"I'm no pirate. What I'm doing is by sheer choice. Wait until you hear
his story, and you may wish to join us."
"Never."
"Never say 'never'," grinned Harrison. "It shows how much you don't
know about everything--especially human nature."
"Look, Neville, I want to know what Terra is doing with the vortex gun."
"I'll never tell you."
"I'll tell you, then," smiled Maynard. "Emplacements augmenting
the planet-mounted MacMillans are being set up around Sahara Base.
Luna is being set up with them, too, since the moon is a natural
invasion-springboard. The main cities are being protected, too, and
some long-range stuff is being put in the remote spots to stave off
any attempt at entry. The triple-mounts in the midships turret of all
constellation craft are being changed from MacMillan to vortex, and the
fore turret on all cruisers. Destroyers will carry a smaller edition in
a semi-mobile mount in the nose, and the fighter craft of the heavier
classes are to have vortex projectors in fixed position. The three
MacMillans will drop to two, the center being replaced in the lighter
ships.
"Oh, and yes, Neville, I mustn't forget the super-sized job that is
being erected on Luna for cross-space work. That's a nice, brutal,
long-futured thought, Neville, and it can do nothing but bring
reprisals."
"That one will not be used except in self-defense--"
"Sky-juice! I only hope that it can be destroyed before it is used. The
fools! Can't you realize that Mars is erecting one on Phobos, too?"