Brinna's face was now absolutely white, with her red mouth showing on
it like a smear of blood. She dropped her hand to the grip of her own
stunner.
She almost made it but not quite. Makvern hit her full on with a
crackling charge and she fell and lay still and senseless.
Makvern sighed. "Poor Brinna. This is like snatching food from someone
that's starving--I almost regret it--"
"I'll bet you do," said Wyatt. If he could have got his hands between
the rods and around Makvern's throat he would have killed him. Burdick
and Bill Whitfield, the Australian, had joined him now, and Whitfield
asked, "What's up?"
"Nothing," said Wyatt with intense bitterness. "Not a damn thing,
thanks to me. I had to get smart."
He felt sick with the knowledge of his own folly. He had taken the
chance on Makvern in the hope of sparing Earth any attack at all, and
this was what had come of it. He and Brinna would now go together to
the pit, and what would happen to Earth would happen.
He pushed Burdick aside and went across the narrow room to the curving
glassite-panelled wall on the other side and stood there. The others
left him alone.
He heard movement and voices in the corridor, but he paid no attention
to them. Nothing was important now. He looked out into space, lighted
with the baleful light of the twin suns, and saw the whole great
Task Force spread between him and the stars overhead, the destroyers
coursing ahead of the main body, all their hulls glittering bright,
beautiful, swift, deadly, a brazen spear for the slaying of planets.
The small craft in which he and the others were imprisoned was dropping
below the fleet. It was extremely difficult to judge speeds here where
there was nothing to go by but the stars, but Wyatt thought the Task
Force must have been decelerating for some time as it approached its
target, and that the small craft was moving considerably faster than
the main body. He watched, simply because the ships were before his
eyes, and he began to realize that this little ship was leading all the
others down to battle.
"Like a damn Judas goat," he muttered, and Burdick spoke from beside
him.
"They took that lady officer away," he said. "I reckon she's in
trouble?"
Wyatt said, "The worst. She was going to help us escape."
Burdick said shrewdly, "Bill and me figured it was something like that.
Too bad it went wrong."
Wyatt explained why it had gone wrong. "I should have been content with
what I had. But I thought if--oh, what the devil's the use of hashing
it over!" He looked at the steel rods that separated them from the
Alpha Centaurians. "If we could just get those bars out of the way,
get all together, the twelve of us--we might still do something. This
is a small ship. It can't carry much of a crew, probably not more than
five or six beside Makvern. If we could rush them and take the ship, we
might be able to force them to fly it to Earth--"
Moonshine. Fool's talk, the babble of desperation. On the other hand,
what did they have to lose?
Their lives, of course. But that would have to be up to the individual.
As far as Wyatt was concerned, the pit was no beautiful prospect.
And if they succeeded--if--
"Well," said Whitfield, "let's get cracking." He crooked his finger at
the Arab, the Turcoman, and No-Name.
In the spaceship, with the incredible panorama of space and the racing
war fleet beyond the observation panels, the six Earthmen held a
conference, speaking to each other not in their own diverse tongues but
in the language of Uryx, a place they had never seen and had not even
known existed until suddenly it had become the most important thing in
their lives.
The conference was brief. When it was over Wyatt and Burdick went to
the wall of rods and talked to the Alpha Centaurians.
* * * * *
Thurne of Obran spoke for them all. "We will fight," he said. "We will
fight gladly." He turned and pointed, his eyes blazing with a feral
light that made him look more like a black panther than a human man.
Wyatt followed his gesture and saw a misty blue planet rushing toward
them in the golden glare of the primary.
Burdick said matter-of-factly, "Before we do any fighting we got to get
out of here, so we better start looking for holes."
They looked. They had no way of knowing whether they were being watched
as they had been on the flagship, but they had to risk that. They
tested every rod and searched in vain for a weak spot. They tried by
main force and by cleverness and there was no way. And the blue misty
planet rushed closer and spread into a vast globe, and the blue color
faded into greens and browns and ochres, splotched with the harsher
blue of water. A high-pitched shrieking began and grew in intensity.
The blaze of the sun was softened and the stars were blotted out.
Clouds whipped and rolled and were gone, and the wild downward rush
stopped. The ship hung in a greenish sky, and there was a yellow desert
of sand and tumbled rock below. Cutting through the desert was a gorge
with a river in the bottom of it, and where the river left the gorge
at the edge of the desert was a green and most beautiful land full of
little streamlets and flashing lakes, with queer-colored orchards and
many-colored fields. And in the middle of the land there was a city.
"Obran," Thurne said.
Wyatt took the rods in his hands and strained until the veins swelled
to bursting on his forehead and his face was crimson.
He could not budge them, but the other rods that barred the corridor
suddenly slid up out of the way and Makvern stood there with another
officer behind him.
Makvern said, "Wyatt--"
But Wyatt had already spun around and launched himself like a charging
bull at Makvern.
He hit him and knocked him back into the other officer. There was a
moment of wild confusion, while Burdick and Whitfield and the others
piled through the door and into the fray. Wyatt was only clearly aware
of one thing and that was that he had Makvern down and that he was
going to kill him and it was all very pleasant. Then Whitfield was
hauling at him and saying something about needing this one later on and
Wyatt allowed himself to be hauled away, and the fight was over. This
much of it, at least.
Burdick pulled Makvern to his feet and held him with one arm doubled
behind his back. The Turcoman was methodically strangling the other
officer and Wyatt went over and made him stop, explaining that the man
might be necessary for flying the ship. Then he turned back to Makvern,
who was shaking his head hard to clear it.
"Take their stunners and keep watch," Wyatt said to Burdick and
Whitfield. "No-Name, you hold him. Good. Don't be afraid to hurt him a
little--remember Cochise." He spoke then to Makvern. "How do I raise
that partition?"
The Alpha Centaurians were all squeezed against it, trying to see what
was going on.
Makvern said, "I'll raise it myself in a minute. God, Wyatt, don't you
ever think before you jump?"
"I've thought," Wyatt said. "Plenty. Where's that control? And where's
Brinna?"
He nodded to No-Name, who exerted pressure. Makvern began to look
really angry. He snapped,
"Will you stop bawling at me and listen? I'm on your side. I'm the man
Loran died for. I _am_ the leader of the Second Party!"
The other officer, who had finally recovered his voice a little after
the Turcoman's mauling, croaked out, "You won't be the leader of
anything for long if we don't get that broadcast going. The flagship
has already checked us once. If Varsek' doesn't find you anywhere else
in the fleet and we don't behave just the way we ought to--"
* * * * *
Makvern glared at Wyatt. "Well? Do you still want to go to Earth, or
would you prefer to accompany Brinna and me to the pit?"
Wyatt said to No-Name, "Let him go."
"Thanks," said Makvern sourly. "This shows signs of becoming a habit. I
would have liked to tell you earlier that plans were already laid, but
I didn't think it was wise. Varsek is unpredictable. He might have sent
you to the pit--"
"Yes," said Wyatt. "You were a big help there. No opinion. You might at
least have said no."
"If I had, you'd have been there in five minutes. Anyway, I've been
teetering on the brink of that pit for weeks. All I wanted to do was
hold out until now."
"So you let Brinna go ahead with this on her own hook, to kind of cover
for you?"
"Yes. It kept her busy, and kept Varsek puzzled about me. It worked out
well. Most of Brinna's men are really Second Party men, though it's
going to be a shock to her to find that out. We were taking no chance
of exchanging Varsek for another ambition-hungry chief, even if this
one is female and handsome."
He had moved into the observation cell and was talking as much to the
Alpha Centaurians as to Wyatt and the Earthmen.
"Your idea of warning Earth and using a setback there to put us in
power--the same thing Brinna had in mind--wasn't a bad one, except that
we can't wait that long. Varsek is alarmed. He's willing to torture the
whole fleet if he has to root us out. We would have liked to put
this off until we were just a little stronger. The fleet has been away
from home a long time now and discontent is growing among the men--we
could have capitalized on that. But we have no choice. If we don't move
now we'll be destroyed, inevitably. So we're making our break at Alpha
Centauri."
"How?" asked Wyatt.
"A full-scale revolt is out. Things will go well here, not much
effective resistance and a lot of loot. Men don't oust a leader under
those circumstances. We can't hope to take over the whole fleet. After
the ships have landed and the ground phase of the attack is under way,
we'll separate ourselves from the main force and take over as many
of the destroyers as we can man. Anybody that wants to can come with
us--in the heat of a successful battle, I'm afraid that won't be many.
After that--" Makvern shrugged. "There are too many variables. I don't
know."
"Can you help my world?" asked Thurne. "My city?"
Makvern said sadly, "I won't lie to you. No. Except in that Varsek will
have fewer men and ships, we can't help. We're not strong enough."
"And you would not fight against your own comrades, anyway," said
Thurne.
"Not under these circumstances, no. That would be too much of a stab in
the back and we'd lose all chance of ever winning them over. About all
I can offer you, Thurne, is the hope of vengeance and the promise that
if we do win we'll make what restitution we can."
"And what about us?" asked Wyatt. "What about Earth?"
"We'll send you there. If Varsek is sufficiently shaken up there may
not be any need for a warning. If not--well, his force will be that
much the weaker."
Wyatt looked at the others and said, "That's fair enough."
Makvern turned to the Alpha Centaurians, who had been talking among
themselves.
"Varsek is already hunting for me through the fleet. He's been told
that I'm not here but if anything about the required routine of this
ship is wrong he'll send a force at once to search it and that will
be about the end of me and the revolt both. What do you say, Thurne?
Can I raise the bars as between comrades, or must I treat you still as
captives?"
Thurne said, "Raise them. We will do what we can against Varsek."
"Good," said Makvern. "Good!" He called to the other officer and the
steel rods slid up out of sight. "Now we must hurry. Thurne, you
were given some instructions quite a while ago. Follow them. I know
they're distasteful to a brave man, but you'll be doing your people no
disservice. To urge them to fight against us would be suicidal."
"Nevertheless," said Thurne, "they will fight."
* * * * *
Makvern sighed. "That's usually the case. Make the speech anyway.
That's what we're here for. We're leading the whole fleet, remember,
out in front where everybody can see us."
He showed the reluctant Alpha Centaurian where to stand, on a lens-like
circle of crystal in the deck, with a similar one over his head. Almost
at once both lenses brightened, so that Thurne stood encased in a
pillar of light.
"But," said Wyatt, "there are no radios down there, no receivers. His
culture hasn't built them yet. How are you going to broadcast?"
Makvern motioned him and the other Earthmen to the observation panels
on their side of the cell. "Watch," he said. "That's what you're
supposed to do anyway. The value of example. The prospective victim is
softened up by seeing what happens to his predecessor."
He started away. "I've watched enough of these things, world after
world. They make me sick. I have things to do now. Listen for the
intercom and be ready to jump when I tell you."
He went out. Thurne stood stiffly in his pillar of light. The ship
dropped lower over the city of Obran. And now the ships of the Task
Force had begun to come into view in the higher air.
A metallic voice said, "Begin the talk, Thurne."
Burdick said suddenly, "I'll be damned. Look there."
In the clear air above the city, ahead of and below the ship, stood a
gigantic three-dimensional image of Thurne, perhaps thirty feet high,
moving slowly as the ship moved, his insubstantial feet brushing the
tops of the queer ornate towers. And now Thurne was talking. Faintly
through the hull came an echoing vibration from outside, and Wyatt knew
that Thurne's voice, as greatly amplified as the prismatic projection
of his personal image, was booming out over Obran. Down in the streets,
in the sunlight, between the tall buildings and in the parks and along
the rows of little mudbrick houses, people were running out to stare up
in fear and amazement.
Thurne was speaking to his people in his own tongue so that Wyatt could
not understand the words, but from his tone and the snarling glint of
bared teeth he was not preaching submission as whole-heartedly as he
might have done. Probably the Task Force was used to that. They could
not control their captives absolutely on these propaganda broadcasts.
They gave them the chance, and probably it paid off in enough
surrenders to make it worthwhile. With more primitive people than
Thurne's, the appearance of a giant in the sky over their heads would
be enough in itself to make them collapse in utter panic.
Down below in the sunlit streets the people began to run here and
there, and a haze of dust arose and shimmered. From the towers and the
high walls a million carven faces looked out unmoved, the faces of a
million dancing stone gods and goddesses.
The fleet came down in a whistling rush among the orchards and fields,
burning and crushing wherever they landed in a great circle around the
city. The people ran. They had no nuclear weapons, no ground-to-air
missiles, no planes. They ran and there was no place to run to. They
were already trapped.
Poor devils, thought Wyatt, and imagined what New York or Washington
would be like under similar conditions, with a gigantic image of
himself striding the sky and bellowing at them to surrender. The
success of Makvern's revolt and the creation of a wide split in the
fleet itself were now his only hope that that might not happen.
"I thought," said Burdick, "that Thurne was so sure they'd fight."
"They will," said Wyatt. "Look. The panic's already quieting." The
women and children had disappeared from the streets now. Groups of
men still ran but their running was purposeful. Suddenly from various
places around the outskirts of the city puffs of smoke burst out and
Whitfield said,
"Little cannon, by God!"
The pillar of light flicked off. The image of Thurne disappeared from
the sky. Makvern's voice came over the intercom. There was an iron note
in it.
"We've been ordered to land at once beside the flagship. Obviously we
can't. And if you look up you'll see trouble on the way."
They looked. Two small fast craft, light-armed but plenty heavy enough
for the propaganda ship, were headed in their direction.
"They will attempt to force that landing on us, and I can't fight them
in this tub. I propose to land at once. It may be rough, so take what
precautions you can. Wyatt, there's a supply of stunners here. Come and
get them."
Wyatt found his way to the bridge. A case of side-arms, apparently
fresh out of stores, had been smuggled there and hidden alike from
Varsek's men and Brinna. Makvern's face was wire-drawn with tension
and excitement. He showed Wyatt the case and then handed him a
three-pronged key.
"She's in the skipper's cabin--it's the only one that's locked. Don't
give her arms or a chance to make trouble. Apart from that I leave her
up to you."
Wyatt said, "Thanks."
Makvern went out, hurrying.
They smashed open the case and served the stunners out, but Wyatt
didn't wait for that. He grabbed one for himself and then went hunting
for the skipper's cabin. He could hear a mounting tumult from the
bridgeroom. The ship was low, skimming the housetops, lurching this
way and that so roughly that it was hard to stand up. The two pursuing
ships were closing fast.
He heard Brinna before he found her. She was shouting through the door,
demanding to be freed. Wyatt struggled with the unfamiliar lock. The
ship rocked wildly. There was a roar and a crack like the grandfather
of all lightning bolts. Blue fire sheeted from the metal inner
surfaces. Half stunned, he saw the door come open under his hand and
then Brinna seemed to leap through the air at him, her eyes wide and
her arms outstretched. She hit him, but he was already flying backward
himself as the ship went out from under him and they fell together
against a wall that had suddenly become a deck. There was a very great
noise and a sound of things moving and somehow the branches of a tree
had appeared, stuck through the broken port of the skipper's cabin
which was now directly overhead.