Spaceships from Main Base had little trouble coming to Earth with their
cargoes of guns, propaganda, instructors, and whatever else the rebels
on the planet needed. They would take up an orbit just beyond the
atmosphere and send boats to the surface after dark. There was little
danger of their being detected if they took the usual precautions; a
world is simply too big to blockade completely.
Ours dropped on noiseless gravitic beams into the nighted island
woods. We had been watching for it the last few days, and now Eb came
running to tell us it was here. The pilot followed after him.
"Harry Kane, Conrad Haugen," Barbara introduced us.
I shook hands, sizing him up. He was tall for an Earthling, almost as
big as I, dark-haired, with good-looking young features. He wore some
approximation of a uniform, dark-blue tunic and breeches, peaked cap,
captain's insignia, which gave him a rather dashing look. It shouldn't
have made any difference to me, of course, but I didn't like the way he
smiled at Barbara.
She explained my presence, and he nodded eagerly. "Glad to have you,
Haugen. We need good men, and badly." Then to her: "Get Hawkins. You
and he are recalled to Main Base."
"What? But--"
A dark exultation lit his face. "The time for action is near--very
near! We're pulling all our best agents off the planets. They can work
more effectively with the fleet now."
I tried to look as savagely gleeful as they, but inwardly I groaned.
How in all the hells was I going to contact Vorka? If I were stranded
out in space when the fleet got under way--no, they must have an
ultrabeam. I'd manage somehow to call on that even if they caught me at
it.
We sent Eb in a boat to get Hawkins while Barbara and I packed a few
necessities. Kane paced back and forth, spilling out the news from Main
Base, word of mighty forces gathering, rumors of help promised from
outside, it was like the thunder which mutters just before a gale.
Presently Hawkins arrived. The old man's calm was undisturbed: he
puffed his pipe and said quietly, "I called up my housekeeper,
told her my sister in California was suddenly taken sick and I was
leaving at once for the transcontinental jetport. Just to account
for disappearing, you know. There aren't any Eridanians or Terries
hereabouts, but we desperate characters--" he grinned, briefly--"can't
be too careful. Brought my equipment along, of course. I suppose they
want me to do psychometry on fleet personnel?"
"Something on that order. I don't know."
We made our way through a fine drizzle of rain to the little torpedo of
the spaceboat. I looked around into the misty dark and breathed a deep
lungful of the cool wet wind. And I saw that Barbara was doing the same.
* * * * *
She smiled up at me through the night and the thin sad rain. "Earth is
a beautiful world, Con," she whispered. "I wonder if we'll ever see it
again."