"So," said Farradyne, "by digging out the rats that gnaw at our roots
we've toppled our tree?"
Carolyn nodded soberly. "We'd hoped to win you by stealth, but we're
prepared. The starships are loaded with mercurite right now."
"I hate to start quoting Patrick Henry," snapped Farradyne. "So I'll
just suggest that you think over the reason why they want me at the
Arsenal."
She looked at him.
"We've always been handy with a screwdriver," he said. "Our race. And
we know we couldn't copy this drive before the mercurite starts to
fall. But there is enough time to load up my Lancaster and take it
out." He roared with harsh laughter. "You didn't mind dying if you
could take me with you. Well, maybe Solans won't mind dying if we can
rid the universe of a bunch of lice, either."
"And what alternative do you offer?" she whispered, white-faced.
"Complete surrender," he snarled. "Complete surrender!" And then he
recalled the history he had been forced to learn as a schoolboy:
history, a subject of dry dates and dry events, a factual symposium
of war and war and war--of conflict and hatred and death. Then had
come the realization of Peace, which started to turn the course of
history from attack and reprisal, and war and defeat, and victor and
vanquished. A just peace, started in the Twentieth Century, which
ended oppression and subjection.
Farradyne looked at Carolyn with a cynical smile. "We demand
unconditional surrender," he said bitterly. "Then we move in and number
off your people. With a careful tally of our own losses, we choose
a similar number from a fish-bowl. So many men to be cold-bloodedly
murdered. So many virgins to be ravished. So many wives left without
husbands, and so many husbands left without wives. Children to
such-and-such a number left homeless, and a certain quantity made to
stand in the street so that automobiles can run them down." His voice
rose to a roar. "Damn it, woman, do you think we're vultures? You've
pushed us around for fifty years, but now you know damned well that we
have what it takes to kick back." His voice fell back to normal, even
lower, as he said, "It's me asking you, now. What'll you have?"
She looked at him. "What am I?" she asked, just as quietly as he. "A
species of louse to be pinched out, or an adversary vanquished? An
un-victorious warrior?"
"You're what you want to be."
Carolyn turned and went up the stairs to the control room where Morgan
was standing behind the pilot with a strong hammerlock closed tight.
Farradyne was close behind her.
"I'll be the defeated warrior," she said. She uttered three words
in her native sing-song and the man in the pilot's chair stopped
struggling. She went to the radio and picked up the microphone and
started to broadcast.
It was a long series of staccato sounds that were sometimes musical and
just as often discordant, as the tones rose and fell seemingly without
pattern. Then she turned to face Farradyne.
"You win. Again you win," she told him. "Somehow you always do, and
maybe--maybe--I'm glad it's over!"
Tears spilled down her cheeks as she stumbled away from him.
* * * * *
Farradyne looked down at the face, as pale and wan as the hospital
sheets. Her eyes opened slowly and saw him. Her smile was genuine, but
far from robust. Farradyne squeezed her hand gently and said, "Relax,
Norma. It's all over."
"You're sure?"
"As sure as any man can be. There's been a batch of meetings and
conferences, and lots and lots of gold braid and striped trousers. I
got strictly left behind when the top-level boys moved in. So now all
you have to do is get well."
Her eyes were large and hurt-animal luminous. "I know. It's not the
excitement. It's the cure. I had to hang on to my nervous system too
long after being freed, they tell me. It's left me washed-out--but I'll
be all right, Charles."
"Good. You've got to be."
"You talk," she said. "I'm--tell me what happened?"
"First thing, they sat on the guys that were in the Lancaster with
Carolyn and among them they discovered a space engineer. They held
them as hostages against my return, and several of us went to Lyra
with Carolyn as interpreter. We made 'em cough up Clevis and about
thirty-five other boys who'd been too smart for them to let free. It's
all been concluded nicely. I have my license back for honest, and just
between you and me, I have enough contracts already to make a mint of
moola out of the interstellar business. I can buy more spacers soon,
and then I can let someone else go a-spacing. Maybe I'd like to retire,
honey--"