The men stared. From the museum where the Stroid records lay, there
rose billows of smoke and licking flames.
"They must have known what we were after," said Phyfe, "and they fired
the building. There's no chance now of getting any of them."
"Yes, there is! Most of the records are metallic." Underwood stepped to
the interphone. "Every man but the takeoff crew in spacesuits. Carry
sidearms and be ready to enter the museum at once."
"What are you going to do?" Illia cried.
* * * * *
Already he was at the nearest locker, struggling into the ungainly
spacesuit. "These will be enough protection from the fire to enable
each man to bring out one load, perhaps."
The old building, as if symbolic of the times, was submitting willingly
to the flames. Its ancient, only partly fireproofed construction was
giving way, and the fire protection system had failed completely.
Rapidly, Underwood went over the plan Phyfe had given him locating the
bulk of the records, then raced toward the cargo hold where the others
were nearly ready. He ordered each pair of men to tow a cargo carrier.
It was a weird procession of unworldly figures that made their way
clumsily from the ship and up the steps of the burning building.
Underwood and Mason were together, towing their carrier, which rested
a foot off the floor. Almost blinded by the smoke, they led the way
through the halls and into the stacks where the half-million-year-old
records lay on shelves.
"Load up! This is it," Underwood called. Like creatures in some
fantastic hell, he saw the others file into the large room behind
him. They began emptying over the shelves, filling the carriers with
whatever came to hand.
The wooden beams supporting the high, archaic roof structure were dry
and roaring with flames. Somewhere out of their line of sight, a beam
gave way and a shower of plaster and masonry filled the air.
"There won't be time for any more," Mason said. "Our carrier's full.
Let's go."
Underwood shoved the carrier toward the doorway through which they had
come. Its inertia was its only opposition.
"You drag the carrier," said Underwood. "I'll get another armful."
While Mason vanished out through the pall of smoke, Underwood scooped
up another armful of materials. Then, almost blindly, he sought the
exit.
Nearly all the others were loaded and dragging their carriers now.
Underwood glanced back. What secrets might yet lie here among the
records they must leave behind! He hoped the gods of chance had been
merciful enough to guide their hands toward some record that would
direct the scientists to the ancient enemy of the Sirenian Empire,
the Dragbora, whose dreadful weapon had been so feared by the Sirenian
hordes.
Back in the ship, Underwood glanced back longingly at the flame-ravaged
building. It was useless to attempt another trip.
* * * * *
The police had apparently hoped the fire would defeat the purposes of
the scientists, but after the successful rescue of tons of records and
artifacts, they resumed their attack with increasing fury.
Underwood called to Byers and the scooter riders to come in. Slowly,
the protective forces withdrew to the ship, and as they did so, the
police began firing into the opening ports. The scooters poured into
the ship, more than one bearing a mortally wounded crewman.
Altogether, only fourteen returned.
"That's all," Byers said grimly. "The rest of the boys won't be coming
back."
For a drastic moment of uncertainty, Underwood wondered if his demand
for the records would be worth that sacrifice. It had to be, he told
himself. Without hope of a weapon to defeat the Sirenian, there was no
purpose in flight into space.
He returned to the control room and gave the order to lift ship.
_CHAPTER TEN_
Through the ports Underwood watched the nearby buildings drop away. The
Sun's disk shot up over the horizon and bathed them in golden glow.
Then the pilot adjusted the controls and sudden, crushing acceleration
was applied to the ship, but to the occupants it was imperceptible.
Like the tired old man that he was, Phyfe slumped down in a cushioned
seat beside the navigator's table.
"You look as if you'd had a pretty rough time of it since I saw you
last," said Underwood.
Phyfe smiled disparagingly. "For fifty years I've been a scholar and
archeologist. It's much too late to find myself in the midst of a
planetary crisis, and expect to be able to cope with it."
"You've done a fine job so far."
"I could never even lead an expedition very satisfactorily, and
certainly not a group of this kind. Terry might, but he lacks the
physical knowledge you have. Mason might, but he knows nothing of the
Sirenians. You're the best qualified of us all for the job."
"I want to be sure the rest think so. It might not be a bad idea to
hold an election."
"We should call a meeting of everyone, anyway. Many of the scientists
are not adequately acquainted with the problem. They should be
organized according to their specialties, and we ought to prepare some
system of defense."
With the ship no farther than the orbit of the moon, a meeting was
called of the hundred and twenty-five scientists and crewmen of the
_Lavoisier_. Phyfe, as nominal chairman, presented Underwood formally
as leader of the group. Acceptance was unanimous and enthusiastic,
for Underwood was known to nearly all of them by reputation if not
personally.
* * * * *
Briefly, he outlined the events concerning the discovery and
restoration of Demarzule, the futile attempts of the scientists to
stand against humanity's demand for a new god. Then he called on Dreyer
to describe the characteristics of the enemy who opposed them.
"In the ages of Earth's past history," Dreyer said, "there have been
conquerors, emperors, dictators and tyrants, but there has never been
Demarzule, the Sirenian. To the Sirenians, conquest and leadership
were as essential as food. There was only one solution for them as
they expanded in the Galaxy, and that was complete mastery of the
Galaxies--or extinction. It was undoubtedly fortunate for our own world
that the Dragbora succeeded in destroying them.
"As to our present problem, Demarzule will sell the peoples of Earth
the idea of their complete superiority over all other races in the
Universe. They're ripe for acceptance of such doctrine. He'll use
the supernatural aspect of his appearance among us and encourage
a worshipful attitude. Then he is, I think, certain to begin the
construction of battle fleets and the assembly of weapons and
armies--not the ships and weapons we know, but the best that Sirenian
science could produce half a million years ago.
"Within a few hours from now he'll be sure to learn of our escape
and our identity as enemies. It is impossible to believe he will not
dispatch pursuit ships to destroy us. Our only chance is to be too far
away for them to catch up with us. At least in Terrestrial ships. By
the time Sirenian designs are built, we must have an answer.
"That, then, is the nature of the problem we face. Our one hope--and
it is a slim one--appears to be the discovery of the weapon by which
the Dragbora overpowered the Sirenian hordes long ago. If we remain
limited by the range of our own science, I am convinced the problem is
hopeless, though I'm aware that happily there are those of you whose
minds differ radically from mine and would not admit defeat even with
such limitations."
* * * * *
"Some of you had objections to our flight, arguing that we should
remain and conduct an underground opposition movement. You were those
who lacked a correct evaluation of our enemy. I want you to understand
that such a movement would have been absolutely futile. A successful
underground movement must be that of an oppressed majority against a
minority of ruling numbers. Humanity _wants_ Demarzule. Never forget
it. That is why we are fleeing.
"But our battle is not with our fellow men; their faults are rooted in
the dark processes of evolution and racial development. The appearance
of Demarzule is an extraneous factor, however, one that evolution
did not allow for. Without him, men would eventually attain maturity
and balance out of the conflicts of their racial adolescence. With
Demarzule as god and leader, generations of development may be wiped
out.
"You must remember that we have committed ourselves to the only
possible course--escape. We're nothing but children beside the racially
old Demarzule. He's a superman from a super-race that outstripped ours
long before our first cave ancestor discovered fire. Let us hope that
we find the weapon of the Dragbora, so our kind may climb the long
evolutionary ladder upon which they have stumbled so sorely."
After Dreyer's speech it was a solemn group of men that faced
Underwood. The semanticist had conveyed for the first time to most of
them the immensity of the threat that confronted them.
They proceeded then with the organizing of the large group into smaller
units according to their specialties. Underwood found there was a
preponderance of physicists and biologists. The thirty physicists
were grouped under the leadership of Mason. To them went the task of
investigating the possible weapons and defenses which could be employed
against the attacks that would certainly come.
The men with strictly engineering qualifications were assigned to work
with Mason's group.
The biological group included a dozen surgeons and four psychiatrists
under Illia's leadership. Dreyer and his fellow semanticists were
assigned with the archeologists to examine the records they had
salvaged from the fire in the hopes of finding a clue to the Dragboran
world and the weapon that might be there.
Most of the physical scientists had varying degrees of skill with
machine tools and equipment and could assist in the fabrication of
armaments for the ship.
The first task was to rig the ship with absorbing screens to prevent
radar echoes and nullify this means of locating them from Earth. It
was a relatively easy project and one that was completed by the end of
their first twenty-four hours in space. That left only astronomical
means by which they could be detected from Earth, and with each passing
hour, this possibility became more remote. Underwood, however, could
not put off the uneasiness that beset him in the face of the pursuit he
knew must surely come.
Six days out and a hundred thousand light years from Earth, Phyfe
uncovered the first evidence that fortune was with them.
He and Dreyer, along with Terry and Underwood and the other
semanticists and archeologists, were working in the single large
chamber allotted to study of the records. Phyfe's sudden exclamation
burst upon the silence of the room. He held up a small metal roll,
fused on the outside, but unrolled in a spiral coil where he had
broken the fused portions away.
"This looks as if it might have been the log of one of the refugee
ships," he said. "Look at it."
Underwood bent over the small machine they had devised for supplying
the correction radiation which would render the characters visible.
Normally, they stood out against their dull, metallic background like
white fire, but these were dim almost to the point of obliteration. He
read slowly, aloud.
"Meathes. 2192903. One _detela_ since leaving Sirenia. Lookout reports
Dragboran vessels within range. A thousand of them, which means we are
outnumbered ten to one. Flight bearings 3827--"