The trick, of course, was in the timing, and the secret was that Bors
knew what he was doing, while those who opposed him did not. Bors had
declared himself a pirate on Tralee, and here off Garen he'd claimed the
same status. But no Mekinese, as yet, knew why he'd outlawed himself,
nor his purpose in challenging a line battleship to fight. It seemed
like the raving, hysterical hatred of men with no motive but hate. But
it wasn't. The _Isis_ could have sent down a missile with a
limited-yield warhead if its only purpose had been to kill or to
destroy. He could have blasted the warship without warning and it was
unlikely that it was alert enough to send up counter-missiles in its own
defense. But he'd have had to smash everything else in the spaceport at
the same time.
Therefore he'd left his two space-boats in low orbit on the night side
of the planet. In thirty minutes or so they'd arrive near the spaceport,
where there was a large cargo-ship loaded with foodstuffs, for Mekin.
Bors wanted that cargo.
So when the Mekinese battlewagon came lumbering up to space, with her
missile-tubes armed and bristling, Bors withdrew the _Isis_. It was not
flight. It was a move designed to make sure that when the fight began
there would be no stray missiles falling on the planet.
* * * * *
Unseen, the _Isis's_ space-boats floated in darkness. They carried ten
men each, equipped with small arms and light bombs. They listened to
such bits of broadcast information as came from the night beneath them.
Boat Number One picked up a news broadcast, and when it was finished,
the petty officer in command pulled free the tape that had recorded it
and tucked it in his pocket. There were items of interest on it.
* * * * *
The _Isis_ came to a stop in space. The battleship rose and rose. It did
not drive toward the _Isis_. There was a maximum distance beyond which
space-combat was impractical; beyond which missiles became mere blind
projectiles moving almost at random and destroying each other without
regard to planetary loyalties. There was also a minimum distance, below
which missiles were again mere projectiles and could not greatly modify
the courses on which they were launched.
But there was a wide area in between, in which combat was practical. The
Mekinese battleship reached a height where it could maneuver on
solar-system drive without rockets. It might, of course, flick into
overdrive and be gone thousands of millions of miles within seconds. But
that would be flight. It would not return accurately to the scene of the
fight. So overdrive could not be used as a battle tactic. It could be
used only for escape.
* * * * *
Near the planet, where the two space-boats floated, the dawnline
appeared at the world's edge. The space-boats swung about, facing
backward, and applied power for deceleration. They dropped into the
atmosphere and bounced out again, and in again--more deeply--and then
swung once more to face along their course. They began a long, shallow,
screaming descent from the farthest limits of the planet's atmosphere.
* * * * *
Out where the sun of Garen was a disk of intolerable brilliance and
heat, the battleship bumbled on its way. It would seem that its
commander scornfully accepted the _Isis's_ terms of combat and moved
contemptuously to the position where his weapons would be most deadly.
His ship's launching-tubes were at the ready. It should be able to pour
out a cloud of missiles. In fact, a sardonic voice came from the
battleship.
"_Calling pirate_," said the voice.
"Yes," said Bors.
"_If you wish to surrender--_"
"We don't," said Bors.
"_I was about to say_," said the sardonic voice, "_that it is now too
late._"
The radar-screen showed tiny specks darting out from that larger speck
which was the battleship. They came hurtling toward the _Isis_. Bors
counted them. A ship of the _Isis's_ class mounted eighteen
launching-tubes. She should be able to fire eighteen missiles at a time.
The Mekinese ship had fired nineteen. If the _Isis_ opened fire, by all
the previous rules of space-combat, she would need to use one missile to
counter every one of the battleship's, there would still be one left
over to destroy the _Isis_--unless she fired a second spread of
missiles, which was virtually impossible before she would be hit.
It was mockery by the skipper of the battleship. He was doubtless much
amused at the idea of toying with this small, insolent vessel. But Bors
did not try to match him missile for missile. He said evenly,
"Fire one. Fire two. Fire three. Fire four."
He stopped at four. His four missiles went curving wildly, in the
general direction, only, of the enemy.
* * * * *
On the planet Garen two shrieking objects came furiously to ground. Men
leaped swiftly out of them and trotted toward a small town, a
settlement, a group of houses hardly larger than a village. One man
delayed by each grounded space-boat, and then ran to overtake the
others. Local inhabitants appeared, to stare and to wonder. The two
landing-parties, ten men in each, did not pause. They swarmed into the
village's single street. There were ground-cars at the street-sides. The
men of the landing-parties established themselves briskly. One of them
seized a staring civilian by the arm.
"To hell with Mekin," he said conversationally. "Where's the
communicator office?"
"Wha--what--?"
"To hell with Mekin," repeated the man from the _Isis_, impatiently.
"Where's the communicator office?"
The civilian, trembling suddenly, pointed. Some of the landing-party
rushed to it. Four went in. There were the reports of blast-rifles.
Smoke and the smell of burnt insulation drifted out. Others of the
magically arrived men went methodically down the street, examining each
ground-car in turn. One of them cupped his hands and bellowed for the
information of alarmed citizens:
"Attention, please! We're from the pirate ship _Isis_. You have nothing
to fear from us. We're survivors of Mekin's invasion of Kandar. You will
please co-operate with us, and no harm will come to you. Your
ground-cars will be disabled so you can't report us. You will not be
punished for this! Repeat: you will not be punished!"
He repeated the announcement. Others of the swiftly-moving
landing-parties drove the chosen ground-cars away from the streets. The
remaining cars received a blaster-bolt apiece. In seven minutes and
thirty seconds from the landing of the small space-craft, a motley
assortment of cars roared out of the village, heading for the capital
city of Garen. As the last car cleared the houses, there was a monstrous
explosion. One of the space-boats flew to bits. Before the cars had
vanished, there was a second explosion. Another space-boat vanished in
flame and debris. The landing-party had no way to return to space. The
inhabitants of the village had no way to report their coming except in
person and by traveling some considerable distance on foot. They were
singularly slow in making that report. The men of the space-boats had
said they were pirates. The people of Garen felt no animosity toward
pirates. They only hated Mekinese.
* * * * *
Out in space, missiles hurtled away from the small ship _Isis_. They did
not plunge directly at the battleship. They swung crazily in wide arcs.
The already-launched Mekinese missiles swerved to intercept them. They
failed. More missiles erupted from the battleship, aimed to intercept.
They also failed. The battleship began to fling out every missile it
possessed, in a frantic effort to knock out the _Isis's_ erratic
missiles, which neither instruments nor eyes were able to follow
accurately enough to establish a pattern of destination.
* * * * *
Half a dozen ground-cars roared through the streets of the capital city
of Garen. They did not seem to be crowded. One man or at most, two,
could be seen in each car, but they drove as a unit, one close behind
another, at a furious pace. When they needed a clear way, the first
sounded its warning-note and the others joined in as a chorus. Half a
dozen sirens blaring together have an authoritative, emergency sound.
The way was cleared when that imperative clarion demanded it.
They swerved under the landing-grid. They raced and bounced across the
clear surface which was the spaceport. There stood a giant, rotund
cargo-ship, pointing skyward. There were ground-trucks still supplying
cargo for its nearly filled-up holds.
The six ground-cars braked, making clouds of dust. And suddenly there
was not one or two men in each, but an astonishing number. They knew
exactly what they were about. Five of them plunged into the ship. Others
drove off the ground-trucks. Uniformed men ran from the side of the
spaceport toward the ship, yelling. One ground-car started up again,
rushed to the control-building, swerved sharply as a crash into it
seemed inevitable, and dumped something out on the ground. It raced back
to the other cars about the cargo-ship. The hold-doors were closing.
The object dumped by the control-building went off. It was a
chemical-explosive bomb, but its power was adequate. The wall of the
building caved in. Flames leaped crazily out of the collapsed heap. The
landing-field would be out of operation.
The last car skidded to a stop. The two men in it ran for the
boarding-stair of the cargo-boat. There was nobody of their party
outside now. The landing-stair withdrew after them.
Then monstrous, incredible masses of flame and steam burst from the
bottom of the rotund space-ship. It lifted, slowly at first, but then
more and more swiftly. It climbed to the sky. It became a speck, and
then a mote at the crawling end of a trail of opaque white
emergency-rocket fumes. Then it vanished.
* * * * *
Far out in space, there was an explosion brighter than the sun, and then
a second and a third. There was a cloud of incandescent metal vapor.
Presently a missile found its target-seeking microwaves reflected by the
ionized metal steam. It plunged into collision with that glowing stuff.
It exploded. Two or three more exploded, like the first. Others burned
harmlessly.
A voice said, "_Cargo-ship reporting. Clear of ground. Everything going
well. No casualties._"
"Report again when in clear space," said Bors.
He waited. Several long minutes later a second report came.
"_Cargo-ship reporting. In clear space._"
"Very good work!" said Bors. "You know where to go now. Go ahead!"
"_Yes, sir_," said the voice from space. Then it asked apologetically,
"_You got the battleship, sir?_"
The voice from space sounded as if the man who spoke were grinning.
"_We'll celebrate that, sir! Good to have served with you, sir._"
Bors swung the _Isis_ and drove on solar-system drive to get well away
from Garen. He watched the blip which was the captured ship as it seemed
to hesitate a very, very long time. It was aiming, of course, for
Glamis, that totally useless solar system around a planet where the
fleet of Kandar orbited in bitter frustration.
Bors got up from his seat to loosen his muscles. He had sat absolutely
tense and effectively motionless for a very long time. He ached. But he
felt a sour sort of satisfaction. For a ship of the _Isis's_ class to
have challenged a battleship to combat, to have deliberately and
insultingly waited for it to choose its own battle-distance, and then to
let it launch its missiles first.... It was no ambush! Bors did not
feel ashamed of this fight. He'd acted according to the instincts of a
fighting man who gives his enemy the chance to use what weapons the
enemy has chosen, and then defeats him.
His second-in-command said, "Sir, the cargo-boat blip is gone. It should
be in overdrive now, sir, heading for Glamis."
"Then we'll follow it," said Bors. Suddenly he realized how his
second-in-command must feel. The landing-party'd seen action--for which
Bors envied them--and he'd felt ashamed because he stayed in the ship in
what he considered safety while they risked their lives. But his
second-in-command had had no share in the achievement at all. Bors had
handled all controls and given all orders, even the routine ones, since
before Tralee.
"I think," said Bors, "I'll have a cup of coffee. Will you take over and
head for Glamis?"
He left the control-room, to let his subordinate handle things for a
time. He'd seated himself in the mess-room when the voice of his
second-in-command came through the speakers.
"_Going into overdrive_," said the voice. "_All steady. Five, four,
three, two--_"
Bors prepared to wince. He put down his coffee cup and held himself
ready for the sickening sensation.
Suddenly there was the rasping, snaring crackling of a high-voltage
spark. There were shouts. There were explosions and the reek of
overheated metal and smoldering insulation. Then the compartment-doors
closed.
When Bors had examined the damage, and the emergency-purifiers had taken
the smoke and smell out of the air, his second-in-command looked
suicidally gloomy.
"It's bad business," said Bors wryly. "Very bad business! But I should
have mentioned it to you. I didn't think of it. I wouldn't have thought
of it if I'd been doing the overdrive business myself."
The second-in-command said bitterly;
"But I knew you'd tried the new low-power overdrive! I knew it!"
"I left it switched in," said Bors, "because I thought we might use it
in the fight with the battleship. But we didn't."
"I should have checked that it was off!" protested his second. "It's my
fault!"
Bors shrugged. Deciding whose fault it was wouldn't repair the damage.
There'd been a human error. Bors had approached Garen on the low-power
overdrive that Logan had computed for him. There was a special switch to
cut it in, instead of the standard overdrive. It should have been cut
out when the standard overdrive was used. But somebody in the
engine-room had simply thrown the main-drive switch when preparations
for overdrive travel began. When the ship should have gone into
overdrive, it didn't. The two parallel circuits amounted to an effective
short-circuit. Generators, condensers--even the overdrive field coils in
their armored mounts outside the hull--everything blew.
So the _Isis_ was left with a solar-system drive and rockets and nothing
else. If the drive used only in solar systems were put on full, and the
_Isis_ headed for Glamis, and if the food and water held out, it would
arrive at that distant world in eighty-some years. It could reach Tralee
in fifty. But there were emergency rations for a few weeks only. It was
not conceivable that repairs could be made. This was no occasion calling
for remarkable ingenuity to make some sort of jury-rigged drive. This
was final.
"I've got to think," said Bors heavily.
He went to his own cabin.
Talents, Incorporated couldn't improvise or precognize or calculate an
answer to this! And all previous plans had to be cancelled. Absolutely.
He dismissed at once and for all time the idea that the _Isis_ could be
repaired short of months in a well-equipped space-yard on a friendly
planet. She should be blown up, after adequate pains were taken to
destroy any novelties in her make-up. There were the tables of Logan's
calculation. Bors found himself thinking sardonically that Logan should
be shot because he had no obligation of loyalty to Kandar, and could as
readily satisfy his hunger for recognition in the Mekinese service as
in Kandar's. The crew....
That was the heart of the situation. The _Isis_ could not be salvaged.
She should be destroyed. There was only one world within reach on which
human beings could live. That world was Garen. The _Isis_ could sit down
on Garen, disembark her crew, and be blown up before Mekinese
authorities could interfere. Perhaps--possibly--her crew could try to
function on Garen as marooned pirates, as outlaws, as rebels against the
puppet planetary government. But they knew too much. Every man aboard
knew how the interceptor-proof missiles worked. Logan might be the only
man who had ever calculated the tables for their use, but if any member
of the _Isis's_ crew were captured and made to talk, he could tell
enough for Mekinese mathematicians to start work with. If Logan were
captured he could tell more. He could re-compute not only the tables for
the missiles, but the data for low-power overdrive which would make any
fleet invincible.
And there was the Kandarian fleet. If its existence became known, it
would mean the destruction of Kandar. Every soul of all its millions
would die with every tree and blade of grass, every flower, beast and
singing bird, even the plankton in its seas.
Bors had arrived at the grimmest decision of his life when his cabin
speaker said curtly:
"_Captain Bors, sir. Space-yacht_ Sylva _calling. Asks for you._"
"I'm here," said Bors.
Gwenlyn's voice came out of the speaker.
"_Are you in trouble, Captain? One of our Talents insists that you
are._"
Bors swallowed.
"I thought you'd gone on as you were supposed to do. Yes. There is
trouble. It amounts to shipwreck. How many of my men can you take off?"
"_We've lots of room!_" said Gwenlyn. "_My father kept most of the
Talents with him. We're heading your way, Captain._"
"Very good," said Bors. "Thank you." He was grateful, but help from a
woman--from Gwenlyn!--galled him.
He heard her click off, and shivered.
Presently the _Sylva_ was alongside. The transfer of the _Isis's_ crew
began. Bors went over the ship for the last time. The ship's log went
aboard the _Sylva_, as did Logan's calculated tables for low-power
overdrive. Bors made quite sure that nothing else could be recovered
from the _Isis_. He looked strained and irritable when he finally went
into one of the lifeboat blisters on the _Isis_ left vacant by the
sacrifice of two space-boats in the Garen cutting-out expedition. A boat
from the _Sylva_ was there to receive him.
"Technically," said Bors, "I should go down with my ship, or fly apart
with it. But there's no point in being romantic!"
"I'm the one," said his second-in-command, "who will stand
court-martial!"
"I doubt it very much," said Bors. "They can't court-martial you for
partly accomplishing something they're in trouble for failing at. Into
the boat with you!"
He threw a switch and entered the boat. The blister opened. The small
space-boat floated free. Its drive hummed and it drove far and away from
the seemingly unharmed but completely helpless _Isis_. Bors looked
regretfully back at the abandoned light cruiser. Sunlight glinted on its
hull. Somehow a slow rotary motion had been imparted to it during the
process of abandoning ship. The little fighting ship pointed as though
wistfully at all the stars about her, to none of which she would ever
drive again.
The _Sylva_ loomed up. The last space-boat nestled into its blister and
the grapples clanked. The leaves closed. When the blister air-pressure
showed normal and green lights flashed and flashed, Bors got out of the
boat and went to the _Sylva's_ control-room. Gwenlyn was there, quite
casually controlling the operation of the yacht by giving suggestions to
its official skipper. She turned and beamed at Bors.
"We'll pull off a way," she observed, "and make sure your time-bomb
works. You wouldn't want her discovered and salvaged."
"No," said Bors.
He stood by a viewport as the _Sylva_ drove away. The _Isis_ ceased to
be a shape and became the most minute of motes. Bors looked at his
watch.
"Not far enough yet," he said depressedly. "Everything will go."
The yacht drove on. Fifteen--twenty minutes at steadily increasing
solar-system speed.
"It's about due," said Bors.
Gwenlyn came and stood beside him. They looked together out at the
stars. There were myriads upon myriads of them, of all the colors of the
spectrum, of all degrees of brightness, in every possible asymmetric
distribution.
There was a spark in remoteness. Instantly it was vastly more than a
spark. It was a globe of deadly, blue-white incandescence. It flamed
brilliantly as all the _Isis's_ fuel and the warheads on all its
unexpended missiles turned to pure energy in the hundred-millionth of a
second. It was many times brighter than a sun. Then it was not. And the
violence of the explosion was such that there was not even glowing
metal-vapor where it had been. Every atom of the ship's substance had
been volatilized and scattered through so many thousands of cubic miles
of emptiness that it did not show even as a mist.
"A good ship," said Bors grimly. Then he growled. "I wonder if they saw
that on Garen and what they thought about it!" He straightened himself.
"How did you know we were in trouble?"
"There's a Talent," said Gwenlyn matter-of-factly, "who can always tell
how people feel. She doesn't know what they think or why. But she can
tell when they're uneasy and so on. Father uses her to tell him when
people lie. When what they say doesn't match how they feel, they're
lying."
"I think," said Bors, "that I'll stay away from her. But that won't do
any good, will it?"
Gwenlyn smiled at him. It was a very nice smile.
"She could tell that things had gone wrong with the ship," she observed,
"because of the way you felt. But I've forbidden her ever to tell when
someone lies to me or anything like that. I don't want to know people's
feelings when they want to hide them."
"Fine!" said Bors. "I feel better." Standing so close to Gwenlyn, he
also felt light-headed.
She smiled at him again, as if she understood.
"We'll head for Glamis now," she said. "The situation there should have
changed a great deal because of what you've done."
"It would be my kind of luck," said Bors half joking, "for it to have
changed for the worse."
It had.