* * * * *
Harrigan was pacing the bridge when McDaniels and Rose came in, stood
at attention and saluted crisply.
The admiral returned the salute. "Relax, gentlemen. I called you here
to commend you both personally for your fast, clear thinking under
the stress of emergency. Cool-headedness under strain is taken as a
matter of course in the Space Forces, but in this case your actions
served as an example to an inexperienced crew and are therefore doubly
appreciated by the officers of this ship. Sit down."
The two men took seats and Harrigan relaxed behind his own massive
desk. "I was with your father at Cadet school, McDaniels, and later at
the Battle of Canopus. Where is the Commander now?"
McDaniels, short and pudgy, answered proudly. "He took command of
Polaris Base I just before we left on the cruise, sir."
"Oh?"
The kid doesn't know yet, Harrigan thought. If the Force can't stem
the League attack damned quick, old McDaniels and his men will be the
expendables in this scrap. But the kid sitting before him was so eager
and obviously proud of his father that the admiral hadn't the heart to
tell him the true score.
"Sir," Rose piped up, "are you the same officer Harrigan that Dad
mentioned during the First Campaign? He was Master Navigator on the old
'Cometeer.'"
"I certainly am." Harrigan smiled broadly. "'Red' Rose was the best
navigator I ever had. He could plot you half way around the Galaxy and
land you in your barracks just in time for supper. How long has it been
now, six years, seven?"
Rose looked at the floor. "Seven, sir. He was hunting Kalabs on
Callisto when the landslide caught him."
"I'm sorry, deeply sorry."
* * * * *
Footsteps sounded in the passageway and the lieutenant, Sanderson, came
in, followed closely by O'Brien. The lieutenant tucked his cap under
his elbow, smoothed back his thick hair and saluted.
Harrigan gazed at the man for a long moment.
"Lieutenant, perhaps the seriousness of our circumstances has not
impressed you fully. But the _Albion_, carrying this inexperienced
crew, stands in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by the League
fleet, or at best, being cut off from Terran base. Therefore I think
it.... Oops!" Harrigan had knocked his water pitcher to the floor.
The plastic didn't break, but water splashed. Sanderson jumped back
convulsively, his face white. O'Brien motioned an orderly to mop up
the mess, and the admiral went on. "You are a seasoned junior officer,
Sanderson. Your record is excellent, otherwise some form of punishment
would be in order. I shouldn't need to repeat that it is your duty to
keep your crew on the alert until we are out of danger. Dismissed."
The lieutenant saluted and turned to leave.
"Oh, Sanderson, one more thing." Harrigan rose and walked around the
desk.
"Yes, sir?"
The admiral faced the lieutenant and, before the dumbfounded eyes of
Rose, McDaniels and the orderly, very deliberately drew his service
blaster and shot Sanderson dead center between the eyes.
McDaniels gulped. Rose jumped up trembling. The orderly let his mop
fall with a clatter. O'Brien winked at Harrigan.
"Great hell, you've killed him." Rose found his voice.
"That I have. That, gentlemen ..." Harrigan pointed to the corpse, "is
a Zith."
An immediate babble of "why's" and "how do you know's" filled the air.
"Look," the admiral motioned and the men gathered around the corpse.
Harrigan stooped, ran his fingers through the thick black hair and
came up with two fleshy, antenna-like appendages about four inches
in length, which sprouted from the skull an inch or so above the
hair-line. "On the Zith home planet, their religion requires that the
head be cleanly shaven, and these antennae are a source of pride. But
when a Zith wishes to pass for a Terran, he allows his hair to grow,
and as long as the antennae are kept flat, he has a fair chance of
going undetected. It's one of the oddities of the Universe that the
Zith and Terran, so unlike in temperament, are, to the eye, unlike
only in this small way. But, in Terran company, most Ziths acquire the
nervous habit of continually running their hands over their hair, to
make sure that the antennae are well hidden."
"But a lot of Terrans have the habit of smoothing down their hair,"
Rose objected. "Isn't that pretty thin evidence to shoot a man by, if
you're not sure?"
* * * * *
"Right," O'Brien broke in, "but you notice that the admiral said the
antennae were the only difference noticeable to the eye. There's
another, more important difference. The chemical make-up of the Zith
body is such that water reacts violently on contact with it, producing
what corresponds to severe burns, usually resulting in death. The
admiral and I both noticed Sanderson's nervous habit down in the
gun-bank a while ago. The pitcher incident a few minutes ago proved to
us that Sanderson was not a Terran. You men noticed how he shook and
paled when the water splashed near him."
"Then this isn't Sanderson at all?" McDaniels asked, his dark eyes wide
with wonder.
"Our records indicate that a Lieutenant Vern Sanderson left Aldebaran
II about three months ago to assist on the _Albion_ shake-down cruise.
My guess is that the real Sanderson met with foul play somewhere along
the way and this ... thing ... was substituted. The League knew that
war was coming. They also knew that the Federation has lately installed
the new Dyer gun and is in the process of installing the Bergesson
Hyper-drive in its capital ships. This critter was probably one of many
sent to get those secrets. With them, victory for the League would be
assured."
"But why kill him? Why didn't you take him prisoner and find out what
he knew?"
"For just one damned good reason," Harrigan answered. "These boys are
telepathic over short distances--the antennae have something to do
with that. If I hadn't taken him by complete surprise, he would have
notified his pals, if any, on this ship. And, if there should happen to
be a dozen or a hundred of these babies on board, we really would be in
for it. O'Brien, arrange a watch on the mess hall. Have all hands who
do not take water with their meals reported. You and chief Scott will
have to call them in one at a time and give them the acid test."
O'Brien went off to arrange the mess hall watch and Harrigan sat down,
heaving a great sigh, behind his desk. "Well, gentlemen," he said, "you
have seen the enemy. Or at least half the enemy."
"Yes, sir," Rose responded, "but what about the Xantus, sir? I--we've
never seen one of them."
The admiral shuddered inwardly. "I hope you never do," he confessed.
All the wretched memories of two galactic campaigns swept over him
again. "A Xantu looks like nothing more nor less than a beer barrel on
skids, with a cauliflower for a head. Eight independently focussing
eyes, one for each of the tentacles that sprout from the middle of the
chest. Get one of those monkeys behind a gun bank and you'll swear you
have a platoon facing you." Harrigan lit a cigarette, forked smoke from
his nostrils.
"The Xantus don't do too much of the actual fighting, though. Back in
the early days of space conquest, they teamed up with the Ziths ...
I imagine because the Xantus have a terrific technical culture but
are few in number, relatively speaking, and the Ziths aren't great on
technology but have the manpower. And too, their home systems are only
a few light-years apart. So far, the partnership has worked out very
well for the Dark Nebula League; the Xantus providing the brains, and
the Ziths the muscle. They are both ancient races, and very probably
their plans for the conquest of this end of the Universe would have
gone nicely if they hadn't run up against the Solar Federation, led by
Terra. We stand smack across their path. It has come to the point now
where it's us or them, absolutely...."
* * * * *
After the Sanderson episode was settled, Harrigan suddenly felt
drained and exhausted, and retired to his quarters. While he slept,
O'Brien, Chief Scott and his men rounded up four more Zith spies who
were immediately executed and unceremoniously dumped into the rocket
chambers. On the double-check, a fifth was discovered cowering in the
captain's life boat and he soon followed his brothers. The great ship
plowed through the ink of space, and the only sounds were the muffled
throbbing from the rocket banks, the steady hum of the chronometer and
the clicking of the audio relay.
At 0500 hours the alarm gong clanged raucously. Harrigan was struggling
into his trousers as O'Brien stuck his head in the door and shouted,
"Jack! They've cut us off!"
The captain explained the situation hurriedly as they sprinted toward
the bridge. "Port watch just spotted 'em. Three o'clock, low, in an
arc. There's only seven of them, but apparently they've taken Polaris
Base and cut us off from Sector I."
A series of muffled thuds was heard, and suddenly a succession of
electric, blue-white flashes from outside the ports turned the dimness
of the passageway into intense, eye-straining brilliance.
"Hot hell! We must have got us one," Harrigan roared, and the two men
broke into a run.
In the powerful bridge screens they could see the great cloud of smoke
hanging in the void, where the League ship had been hit, and, coming
through it, several more of the grim pursuers. Occasionally a beam of
ripping, ravaging energy would lick out towards the _Albion_, but the
slim fingers of death fell shorter of their goal by the minute.
"Well," Mike breathed in relief, "we can outrun them. But what now?"
"Better set a course for Antares IV," Harrigan advised. "The
maintenance depot there can install the Hyper-drive in a few days and
we can make it back to Terra then regardless of what the League holds."
* * * * *
As soon as the _Albion_ was safely out of range of the League ships,
the two officers were joined on the bridge by Master Gunner Cliff
Irvington. They discussed the narrow squeak for a few minutes. At
length Irvington punched out his cigar and confessed, "I could stand a
drink."
Ten minutes later they were seated in Harrigan's Spartan quarters over
a bottle of good Terran Irish whiskey and a flagon of Jovian Blongah.
Irvington downed an heroic shot of the Jovian mixture, shivered, howled
and grabbed for the pitcher of water which the orderly had placed on
the small table.
"Of all the chicken drinkers," O'Brien chaffed. "One little swig and
he's halfway under the table. Watch this, son, and learn from a master
of the aht." Whereupon the Captain poured a water glass full of the
volatile brew and swallowed it without batting an eye.
"Nuts," Cliff grunted. "I have to stay off the stuff for months at a
time. You birds on the bridge can swill from one side of the galaxy to
the other, but I've got to watch my nerves. And how about that night in
Venusport when I had you two guys reeling, the night before we got our
commissions?"
Harrigan stifled a belch. "Only an idiot could drink that ook and stay
on his pins. What was it now? Oh yes, Thunderbolt cocktail. Two parts
Terran vodka, one part Irish whiskey, gin, three raw eggs, nutmeg and a
jolt of Martian faylee. Cosmos! They say it made good rocket fuel in a
pinch."