"What are they?" asked Lyllin, fascinated.
"Fireflies?" Kirk said doubtfully. "I remember that word, from somewhere...."
Then he suddenly started and exclaimed, "Hell, what—"
A small sinuous body had suddenly plopped into his lap. Two green eyes looked insolently up at him. It was the cat.
"It's very tame," said Lyllin. "It must have been somebody's pet."
"Probably belonged to the last people who lived here," Kirk said. "It's tame, all right."
He stroked its furry back. The cat half-closed its eyes and emitted a rusty purring sound. "Like that, eh, Tom?"
Tom settled down cozily, in answer. Lyllin reached to stroke its head.
With startling swiftness, the cat recoiled from her and leaped off Kirk's lap. It stared green-eyed back at them, then started across the lawn.
Kirk turned, laughing. "Crazy little critter—" He stopped suddenly. "Lyllin, what's the matter?"
She was crying and he had rarely seen her cry. "Did it scratch you?"
"No. But it feared me, and hated me," she said. "Because it knew I'm alien."
Kirk said, "Oh, rot. The wretched beast is just afraid of strangers."
"It wasn't afraid of you. It sensed that I'm different—"
He put his arm around her, mentally cursing Tom. Then, as he wrathfully looked after the cat, Kirk stiffened.
Tom had started across the lawn toward the dark brush nearby. But the cat had stopped. And, as Kirk looked, Tom suddenly emitted a hiss and recoiled. It went away from the dark clumps, in long swift leaps.
Kirk's thoughts raced. The cat had recoiled from that brush, exactly as it had recoiled from Lyllin. For the same reason? Because someone alien, not of Earth, was in those shadows? He thought he could hear a slight sound, and his muscles suddenly strung tight. Ferdias' agent wouldn't approach so secretly. Non-Earthmen skulking in those shadows meant only one thing.
He said, "Come on in the house and forget it, Lyllin. I could stand another drink—"
But instantly, when inside the house, Kirk made a lunge toward the nearest bedroom and grabbed for the blankets there. He tossed one of the blankets to Lyllin with frantic speed.
"Wrap it around your head—quick!"
She was intelligent. But she was not used to obeying orders instantly and without question "Kirk, what—"
He grabbed the blanket out of her hands and started wrapping it many times around her head, speaking in a whisper as he did so.
"Out there. Someone. If they want to be quiet about it, they're sure to use a sonic knockout-beam.Hurry—"
He pulled her to the floor. The blanket swathed her head. He wrapped the other one around his own head, fold after fold. They lay, tense, waiting.
Nothing happened.
He thought how foolish they would look, lying on the floor with their heads swathed, if nothing at all did happen.
He still did not move. He waited.
A series of small sounds began in the back of the house, just vaguely audible through the blanket-folds. A chattering of windows, creaking and rattling of beams, clink of dishes.
The sounds came slowly through the house toward them.Chatter, rattle—leisurely advancing. He knew then he'd guessed right. The sonic beam itself was pitched too low to hear. But it was sweeping the house.
It hit them. Lyllin stirred suddenly with a small sound, and Kirk gripped her arm, holding her down. He knew what she was feeling. He felt it himself, the sudden shocking dizziness, the keening inside his head. Even through the swathings of thick blanket, the beam made itself felt. Without protection they'd already be unconscious.
The shock passed. The beam was sweeping on to the front of the house. Kirk remained on the floor, his hand still holding Lyllin's arm. He'd used sonics himself. He had a pretty good idea of how this one would be used.
He was right. The small, half-audible sounds of the house and its shuddering contents came walking back toward them.
Chatter—clink. Rattle—clink—
It hit him again, and he set his teeth and endured it. And again it passed them, and once more the kitchen dishes started talking.
Kirk suddenly thought of the unsuspecting Earth folk in the nearby farms, sleeping peacefully in their old houses, without ever a dream that in their quiet countryside, alien folk from the stars were pitted in a secret struggle that had this whole ancient planet as its prize.
The sounds shut off abruptly. Kirk unwrapped his head, and twitched at Lyllin till she did the same. He made a warning motion to her, to keep down, and he himself crawled forward to the old living-room. He had the little shocker in his hand now.
In a corner of the living-room, behind a grotesque old table, he waited. There was no sound at all.
Then there was one. Footsteps, on the porch outside—coming fast and confidently to the door.
A man came into the room. He wore a dark space-jacket and slacks, he carried a shocker, and he walked like a dancing panther.
Kirk knew him.
His name was Tauncer.
CHAPTER VI
Behind Tauncer came an older man, as gray and solid and rough at the edges as an old brick. He could have been an Earthman, and probably was. He was loaded down with a porto, and some other piece of equipment in a carrying case slung over his shoulders.
Taking no chances at all, but allowing himself to feel a deep and vicious pleasure, Kirk fired from behind the table.
Even so, warned by some faint sound or perhaps only by the instinct of the hunter, Tauncer swung toward him in the instant before the burst of energy hit. He did not quite have time to fire. The impetus of the turn made him hurtle halfway across the room to hit the floor headlong.
The brick-like man was slower. He had only managed to open his mouth and lift his hand halfway toward his armpit when Kirk's second blast dropped him quietly where he stood.
Kirk got up. He found that he was shaking. He looked down at Tauncer, thinking how easily a man could die, flexing his fingers in a hungry way. Lyllin came into the open doorway, and he said angrily,
"You were to stay back there."
Her eyes did not leave his face. She murmured, "Yes. I did wrong." Then, looking at the sprawled bodies, "Are they dead?"
"We're not out on the Sector frontier," Kirk growled. "I wish we were. But here on these old planets they take violence seriously. No, I just used stunning bursts on them."
He rummaged the house until he found wire, and bound the hands of the two men very securely behind them. Then he searched them. He did not find any documents, which was no surprise. He removed a shocker from the brick-like man, and took it and the porto and the heavy carrying case far out of reach.
The carrying case contained a vera-ray projector with its tripod collapsed. Possibly the same one Tauncer had tried to use on him in the cluster world. Tauncer seemed extremely fond of the vera-ray. Probably, in his business, he never traveled without one.
He gave Lyllin the shocker that Tauncer had dropped. "Watch them. Back in a moment."
He went out and rapidly, carefully, searched the grounds of the old farmhouse. He found the sonic device squatting heavily behind a bush. He stood by it for some moments, perfectly still, listening, but there was no sound except the faint stirring of the breeze. There did not seem to be anyone else around. Tauncer and the Earthman must have come alone. Kirk frowned. He picked up the sonic device and stood for a second longer, uneasy but baffled. There was no sign of an air-car. They must have landed far back in the woods to avoid betraying themselves by the noise of the motors. But he could not search the whole woods, not tonight.
He went back to the house.
"They're coming around," said Lyllin. She was sitting in a chair in front of the two bound men, watching them. She rocked back and forth in a rhythmic motion, making the old floorboards squeak. "Look," she said, in a voice just a little too high, "I found out what this queer chair is for. It's rather pleasant."
"I don't find it so," said Tauncer suddenly. "The creaking irritates me." He opened his eyes, and Kirk had the feeling that he had been keeping them closed for some time, shamming, while he took stock of the situation.
"Well," he said to Kirk. "I'm an acknowledged expert with the sono-beam. Would you mind telling me how you did it?"
Kirk said, "We had warning—a friend of mine named Tom." He motioned Lyllin to get up. "Go on in the other room, dear. I don't think you'd enjoy this."
She looked at him as though he was someone she had just met and was not sure she liked.
"Try to understand," he said. "I don't do this sort of thing every day. It's hardly ever necessary."
"Of course," she said. She went into the next room, and he shut the door behind her. Then he sat down in the rocking chair, with the shocker held ready in his hand.
Kirk looked at Tauncer. "I'm a peaceful man," he said, "visiting my ancestral home. What did you want with me?"
Tauncer smiled. There was something about him that made Kirk more and more uneasy—a lack of concern, a deep-based confidence that didn't fit a man in his position.
Tauncer said gently, "You are the Commander of the Fifth Squadron, Lyra Sector, awaiting orders from your Governor. You are wasting your time."
Kirk's nerves tightened painfully, but he kept his face impassive. "Go on," he said. "I'm listening."
"Ferdias' agent was supposed to meet you here secretly with certain—information." Tauncer spoke with deliberate clarity, as one who explains some problem to a child. "He is not coming. We've known who he is, for some time. And I got to him, before he ever left New York." He nodded to the vera-ray projector across the room. "I used that extremely useful invention on him, and of course he told me all about this place and how he was supposed to meet you here. So I came instead."
Kirk looked at the vera-ray himself, but Tauncer shook his head. "It wouldn't do you any good. The particular piece of information you need—namely, when and where to move—is not known to me, and your contact man had not received it yet either. When it does come through, one of our men will get it—probably already have."
Tauncer's eyes looked up brightly at Kirk, the eyes of the adroit and wily man measuring the honest clod for another defeat.
"You might just as well free me, Kirk. It was a good try, but your cause is hopeless now."
"Not as long as I'm on my feet," said Kirk, getting up. He was a very angry man. "Not as long as the Fifth will follow me. If I don't get orders, I'll make my own."
"No," said a familiar voice behind him. "The Fifth isn't going anywhere, Commander."
Kirk whirled around.
Joe Garstang was standing in the front door. He had a shocker in his hand, pointing with rocklike steadiness at Kirk's breast.
"Drop your weapon," said Garstang.
A red haze swept over Kirk's vision. Through it he saw Garstang, wavering and distorted. Blood hammered in his temples. "You," he said, so choked with rage at this enormity that he could hardly form the words. "My own captain. My friend. Traitor. Working for him—"
Distant and strange in the red mist, Garstang's face became twisted as though with pain.
"I'm sorry," he said, and fired.
Kirk fell onto the floor. Garstang must have pressed the stud back to a light charge, because Kirk was still conscious and only partly paralyzed. His own weapon dropped out of his nerveless fingers.
Garstang came and kicked it away. Kirk flopped around like a gaffed fish, trying to get his reflexes working again. He heard the inner door open, and then Lyllin screamed, partly in fear but mostly in fury, a purely animal sound. She went for Garstang, ignoring his shocker, with a single-minded intent to kill. Her own hands were empty. She was content with them.
Garstang dropped his weapon in his pocket and caught her, holding her hands away from his face and eyes.
"Please," he said. "Please, Lyllin. He's not dead, he's not even hurt." He turned to Kirk. "You should have dropped your shocker. I told you." There was a fresh onslaught, and a red line sprang out on Garstang's cheek. It began to drip slowly, small bright drops against the leathery brown. "Kirk, for God's sake call her off," he said.
Kirk managed to sit up. He mumbled, shook his head two or three times, and finally the words were intelligible. "I'm all right. Come here, Lyllin. Help me up."
She relaxed then, dropping her hands. Garstang let her go. She hissed at him in furious Vegan and then ran to Kirk. "I should have used that weapon," she said. "I should have killed him. I forgot it. I'm sorry." She began to struggle, trying to lift him.
Garstang went immediately into the next room. Through the open door Kirk saw him look around and then pocket the shocker that Lyllin had laid down and forgotten. Lyllin didn't notice, and he said nothing. What was the use?
"Push that chair over here," Kirk said. "Now don't worry, this'll wear off. I'll be all right in just a few minutes. Yes. That's it."
He sat in the rocker, rubbing his numb right arm with his left, trying to stamp his foot, but he couldn't move it yet. He glared up at Garstang, who had come and was standing near Tauncer, looking from him to Kirk with a faint frown.
Tauncer had not spoken, and he did not speak now. He sat where he was and waited, and watched them.
"Well," said Kirk, "what are you waiting for, Joe? Go ahead and untie him."
"No," said Garstang, shaking his head slowly. "No, I'm not going to untie him."
"Why not?" demanded Kirk bitterly. "Or have you decided to double-cross him, too?"
"I don't think you understand," said Garstang. "I'm not working with Tauncer. I'm not working for Solleremos at all."
Kirk stared, for a moment surprised out of his rage. "But then who—"
"My loyalty," said Garstang, "is to Earth."
"Oh, hell, that doesn't make sense," said Kirk. "You're no more Earthman than I am—"
"I am, Kirk. You never knew it, but I'm all Earthman. And I've been in Earth Intelligence for fourteen years."
Garstang went on slowly. "Earth may be old and partly helpless, but she is not so blind as to let five powerful hungry Governors go unwatched. We've seen this grab coming for a long time. The only thing we didn't know, and couldn't find out, was which one of the five would try it first. But now I think we know."
"What do you think you know?" said Kirk.
Garstang looked at him steadily. "Ferdias was the only Governor who sent a squadron to Earth, for the Commemoration. Why?"
Kirk cried, "To protect Earth from Solleremos! It's Orion who's going to try the grab!"
"I thought you'd say that, Kirk. Maybe you believe it. But ask yourself—if that's so, why didn't Ferdias warn us openly? Why did he have you sneak off to this undercover rendezvous?"
Garstang shook his head. "No, Kirk. I think you're an honest man. And I think you've been had. I think you've been had all the way."
CHAPTER VII
Kirk began to laugh. He laughed until tears of rage and desperation stood in his eyes.
"Christ," he said, "If Earth agents are all as bright as you are, Joe, God help her."
He pointed to Tauncer. "Allow me to introduce you. This is Tauncer, Solleremos' right-hand man."
Garstang nodded. "I know."
"I've just fought him off, and now I have to fight you. A fine thing. A damn fine thing. Listen, Joe. The Fifth was sent here by Ferdias to protect Earth. Solleremos will attack—"
"When?" asked Garstang.
"I don't know. Ferdias' agent was supposed to meet me here and give me final orders. Tauncer has taken care of that. Why do you suppose he did that? Why do you suppose he came here and attacked me? He—"
Garstang turned to Tauncer. "Yes," he said. "Why did you?"
Tauncer said quietly, "You were perfectly right, Garstang. Ferdiashasbeen planning to grab Earth. We knew that, in Orion. We had to know when and how Ferdias would do it—and it was my mission to find out. I was trying, there in the cluster. I tried here, but the Commander was too much on guard."
"You're lying," said Kirk between his teeth. "Not two minutes ago you were telling me I couldn't stop Solleremos from taking over Earth. Lyllin, you heard it—"
Lyllin whispered, "I am sorry—but you sent me away from the room. Remember?"
Tauncer turned to the Earthman. "Harper will tell you I'm not lying. You heard every word, didn't you, Harper?"
The Earthman wrinkled his seamy cheeks and said in a tone of ringing honesty, "I sure did."
Kirk was not yet able to stand up and kill him, or Tauncer, so he shut his jaws tight and tried to think. I mustn't be drawn into a verbal slanging match, he thought. That's what Tauncer wants. The more I yell and swear the worse I look. What must I do? Something. Something....
"—so we're going to act suddenly to disarm the Fifth Squadron," Garstang was saying. "Charteris has been suspicious from the first, and what I told him there last night made him more so. And—"
"Disarm the squadron?" cried Kirk. "Are you insane?" He had a sudden nightmare vision of the Orion ships sweeping in, of the cruisers and transports of the Fifth disappearing in a storm of smoke and fire, the men falling like dead leaves.
"We can't take any chances," Garstang said, moving toward the phone. "The Earth Navy—"
"Ha!"
"The Earth Navy," repeated Garstang, "is on full alert right now."
"Solleremos will eat it up," said Kirk savagely. "Don't be a fool, Garstang. I don't care how loyal you are to Earth, you've got to admit her navy can't face Orion Squadrons for five minutes."
Garstang hesitated. His face was grim and sad, and Kirk felt sorry for him in spite of his anger. Garstang said, "We'll have to do what we can. We'll fight enemies if they come, but we'll make sure first we don't get stabbed in the back."
He picked up the phone. A gleam of satisfaction crossed Tauncer's face. Kirk saw it, and suddenly the inspiration came to him.
He exclaimed, "I've been an idiot! Listen, Joe—put that phone down. I can prove what I said in three minutes. If I don't—then go ahead and call."
Garstang looked at him, frowning.
Tauncer said, with the first edge of tension his voice had yet shown, "Go ahead, Garstang, don't let him make a fool of you."
Kirk said, "Shut up." He rose and hobbled over to the vera-ray projector. "Help me set this up, Joe. Tauncer used it on Ferdias' agent, and he was going to use it on me. Now let's see what it'll get out ofhim."
Garstang came over. "A vera-ray? Why didn't you mention it before?"
"I was too damn mad to think straight," said Kirk.
They set it up, and Tauncer watched them, not speaking, yet still the look of apprehension in his eyes was tempered with some underlying confidence. He seemed to be thinking, very hard.
Garstang got the projector going. Harper, the seamy Earthman, winced away from Tauncer as far as he could get. Behind the projector Kirk could not feel anything, but Tauncer's face was briefly agonized, and then it went slack and his eyes lost their keen brilliance, becoming vague and unfocused.
"Tauncer," said Garstang. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Is Solleremos planning to take Earth into his Sector?"
Some dim vestige of a censor barrier seemed still to survive in Tauncer's mind, because there was a long delay and Garstang asked the question again, more sharply. But when the answer came it was clear enough.
"Yes."
Kirk looked at Garstang, and Garstang's cheeks reddened. Lyllin said triumphantly, "You see?"
"All right," said Garstang, and turned again to Tauncer.
"How will he do it?"
"Direct attack. The Earth naval forces are negligible. Lyra Squadron will be caught on the ground, disorganized by absence of command."
"Absence of command," said Kirk slowly. A sudden alarm came into his face. "You were going to keep me from returning to the squadron."
"Yes."
"But not here at this farm. Too many people knew where I was. Charteris, folk in the town—"
"Oh, no," said Tauncer, "not here. Fast scout. The ship that brought me to Earth ahead of your squadron. It's been waiting out beyond radar range. It will take us all off."
Now, thought Kirk, I know why he's been so confident. He's been planning for time. "You sent word to the scout-ship?"
"Yes," said Tauncer. "On the porto, right after I beamed your house. I was sure you'd be unconscious."
Over Kirk's shoulder, Garstang said sharply, "When will it land?"
Tauncer made a vague movement as though trying to get his arm around where he could see his chrono. Garstang said, "It's exactly two minutes after eleven, Earth time."
Tauncer's lips moved. "Before midnight," he said. "Soon."
He seemed, dazed as he was, to be smiling.
Garstang said to Kirk, "You've got to get out of here, and fast!" He started to turn hurriedly away, as though to hustle him and Lyllin out of the house at once, but Kirk said, "No, wait, let me think."
He spoke to Tauncer. "You don't know exactly where Solleremos' squadrons are, or exactly when they'll strike."
"No."
"But there must be a signal, some word they're waiting for."
"Yes," said Tauncer. "When the scout takes us off, that will be the signal. Means we've got Commander. Means Lyra Squadron confused."
Garstang tugged at Kirk. "Come on."
"But," said Kirk to Tauncer, "suppose the scout doesn't find anybody here."
"All the same. They'll know I've failed, and plan may be known. So order will be to strike like lightning before defensive measures taken."
Kirk shut off the projector. He bent over Tauncer. "Get up," he said. "Joe! Give me a hand." They got Tauncer wobbling to his feet. "Put him in the ground car and take him back to Charteris. Try and convince Charteris to let the Fifth go on battle-alert. Every minute may count—if we're caught on the ground, we're sunk."
"Kirk—"
"Don't argue. If anything happens to me, Larned is to take over and cooperate fully with Admiral Laney. You—"
"What do you mean, if anything happens, you're coming too."
"No."
They wrestled Tauncer down the front steps.
"But the scout—"
"That's just it. You heard what he said. The scout mustnottake off again."
"So what are you going to do?" asked Garstang. "Stand and hold it with your bare hands? We can't possibly get any help from New York in time."
"Yeah," said Kirk. "So I'm going to try to get help right here."
"From these people?"
"Haven't you heard?" said Kirk. "I'm a local boy."
"So if you get it? A bunch of farmers. Even if they'll listen to you, which they probably won't—"
They shoved Tauncer into the car. "Better tie his feet too," said Kirk. "Lyllin! Lyllin, you're going with Joe."
"No," she said from the porch. "I am not."
"But you can't stay here!"
"If you are going to get yourself killed here, I stay!"
She was determined to make a fight about it, and Kirk had no time right then. "All right," he said. "I guess you'll be safe enough with the Vinsons." He slammed the door after Garstang. "Get going."
Garstang swore but he roared the ground car out in a cloud of dust and gravel. Kirk ran back into the house. Most of the feeling had come back in his side, and he could move pretty fast. The Earthman, Harper, was squirming around the floor trying to get free. Kirk gave him one ruthless blast with the sono-beam that would put him to sleep for a day or so. He could be dealt with later, when more important things were out of the way. Then he got on the phone and called Vinson.
A sleepy voice answered. "I was just going to bed. What do you want?"
"When you have an emergency around here," said Kirk, "what do you do to get help in a hurry?"
Vinson's voice waked up. "Why, I phone around fast. The boys turn out quick for fire, flood or whatever. Hey, you got a fire, Commander?"
"Worse," said Kirk. "Do your people have guns of some kind?"
"Sure, nearly every farm has a hunting-shocker. But—"
"Tell 'em to come armed, and come fast. Your place. My wife and I are coming now."
"Say Commander, is this a joke or what?"
"It's the unfunniest joke ever to hit Earth," Kirk said grimly. "Call them!"
He slammed the phone down, grabbed Lyllin by the hand, and lit out, full tilt down the path and into the moonlit road.
By the time they reached Vinson's house, all the lights were on and Vinson himself was standing in the road, waiting for them.
"I hope you know what you're doing," he said to Kirk worriedly. "The boys don't like getting hauled out for nothing. What's up?"
Kirk told him, rapidly, between gasps, as he helped Lyllin up on the porch. Mrs. Vinson, a pleasant-looking dark-haired woman in a pink robe, cried out from the doorway and took Lyllin's hand to welcome her in.
"What on earth is going on?" she demanded. "Why, you poor thing, he's run the legs off you! Come in, sit down—" Then she caught sight of Vinson's face. "What is it?" she asked quietly. "Tell me, so I'll know what to do."
"There's going to be a fight," said Vinson, in a wondering, half-incredulous tone. "There's a war going to start, and the first fight is going to be right here, in Orville."
"In the woods," said Kirk hastily, pointing. "You'll be quite safe here. And if we can take them by surprise, there won't even be a skirmish."
"He says that the fate of Earth depends on us," said Vinson, still in that wondering tone. "Well. I'm damned. What do you know!"
A car roared up outside. Another followed it, and then others at irregular intervals. Pretty soon Vinson's yard and porch were crowded with men carrying hunting-shockers. They looked at Vinson, and at Kirk, curious, doubtful, not exactly hostile but in no mood to be hurried into anything they didn't understand. Kirk glanced up at the sky and groaned. Then he spoke, as rapidly and forcefully as he could.
"So that's the picture," he finished. "If that Orion scout takes off again after it lands, your Earth may be a different place tomorrow. We can stop it—if you will."
He wailed. There was no reaction at all for a moment, the leathery faces looking silently at him. Then one man said,
"If people come bothering us, we'll bother them back—plenty. But we don't need any stranger telling us what to do."
Kirk's heart sank. The cursed Earth mulishness was going to defeat him, after all.
Vinson said loudly, "What do you mean, stranger! This is one of the old Orville Kirks.He'sno stranger. It's strangers that he wants us to help slap down."
They thought that over for a moment, and again Kirk looked up at the sky. It must be very close now. In minutes, maybe, it would drop down, and there would be nothing at all to stop it from going away again and giving the signal. And these stolid farmers....
The one who had spoken peered bleakly at Kirk, and said, "Well. Like I said, we don't want strangers interfering with us. Do we, boys?"
The men nodded assent, and stalked toward their cars. Kirk turned away, defeated and furious. He'd have to try by himself—
Motors roared to life, and the cars started to go by him. A big red truck paused beside him, and Vinson reached down from it to haul him aboard.
"What are you standin' there for?" he cried to Kirk. "You said it might come any minute!"
Kirk, a little dazedly, scrambled up into the truck beside him. "You mean they're going back with me—"
"What did you think? Like Fred said, no blasted strangers from away outside are going to come sneaking in here!"
The truck roared away down the moonlit road, following the speeding cars back the way Kirk had come, waking hurrying echoes, raising a great cloud of dust to redden the moon.
Kirk thought, "I'll never understand these damned Earthmen—never!"
CHAPTER VIII
At three minutes and fourteen seconds before midnight a small, fast spacecraft with the insigne of the striding warrior on her bows dropped down out of the sky and landed in the brush-grown meadow at the edge of the Kirk woods. There was nothing anywhere in sight around it but the dark quiet mass of the trees, the patches of bramble and pale white blossoms of the Queen Anne's Lace. Across the meadow was the Kirk house, with a single lamp burning in it.
A hatch opened and a party of men came out, climbing down a collapsible ladder. There were fifteen of them, armed. They stood still, looking around and listening. Then they began to move toward the house, scrambling and stumbling among the briars and the tufts of bunch-grass, fanned out like skirmishers.
Kirk, lying behind a hazel bush in the fringe of the woods, waved one hand slowly in an outward arc, and there were several small rustlings in the brush to his left. He waited, feeling tense and prickly all over, sweating heavily, though the night was cooler now. He counted, slowly and carefully, moving his lips. Held tight in the crook of his arm was the heavy sono-beam device, snatched up from the house as they came past it. Vinson was beside him, and among the trees nearby were eight more men, waiting for Kirk's signal. Kirk could not see Vinson's face in the dark, but he could hear his breathing, quick and excited. He leaned his head close to the Earthman's, and whispered,
"Remember, keep down out of the way until you see me go in."
He raised up cautiously.
"All right. Now."
He began to creep rapidly toward the slash of light from the scout-ship's open hatch. The others came behind him. He was not used to this sort of stalking, and he made more noise than the other nine put together. He hoped no one would hear it.
From the direction of the house there came a sudden crackling of shocker-beams. Kirk flung himself forward, over the last few feet. Secrecy was a lost hope now, and all that mattered was getting the sono-beam projector into the open hatchway. The bloody thing weighed a ton when you carried it, but its heft was only relative. Against armor-plate and the strong double-hull of a space-ship it would be no more effective than a bullroarer.
There was a guard of two in the hatchway. They sprang to the lip of the opening, staring toward the house, their shockers lifted. Kirk yelled, "Get 'em!" Vinson and a man on the other side of him fired almost together. The guards came tumbling forward onto the ground. Kirk dodged between them and set the sono-projector on the edge of the hatch floor. He had to reach high to do it. The others, following his orders, were hugging the curve of the hull on either side of the ladder. Kirk slammed the stud full charge and wide open.
"They're coming back this way!" yelled Vinson. He was looking toward the house. Kirk craned his neck.
The shocker-flashes flickered like heat-lightning in the night. They moved back toward the ship—probably the fifteen men, or what was left of them, were retreating from the Orville men whom Kirk had stationed in the house and yard.
He said desperately, "Stop them, damn it, can't you stop them?" The sono-beam projector was sliding out of his hands, walking itself with its own vibration across the smooth-worn metal. He had to turn to hold it.
Inside the ship there was bedlam going on, a sound of things breaking and men's voices raised in inarticulate cries. A tall gray-haired man with a captain's stars on his shoulder-tabs came at a staggering run into the passage and dropped, and lay still. His hands quivered with the jarring of the floor.
Kirk shut off the projector and threw it away. He went up the ladder, and at the top he paused a second to look at what was happening in the meadow. The Orville men who had gone in behind the invaders had risen out of the brush. Their shockers flared in a line of ragged light amid the brambles and the white flowers. Then there was darkness and a sudden peace.
"Come on!" Kirk shouted, his voice carrying far across the meadow. Then he ran down the passage, with Vinson and the other eight pounding at his heels. The gray-haired captain did not move as they went by.
And it was almost easy. Seven, eight, nine, of the crew lay sprawled in the main passage or in doorways opening from it, unconscious. The communications man was still making vague pawing motions at his dials, but the motions were only reflex and the equipment was jarred to fragments of splintered glass and plastic. In the small, compact bridge, best protected by intervening bulkheads, the two junior officers and three crewmen were still conscious but too dazed to offer resistance.
"Well," said Vinson, breathing hard, his eyes shining. "We did all right."
"We did fine," said Kirk, grinning. The other eight grinned, too, nodding their heads at each other and at him. They had fought together and won together, and now they were all comrades, men of Orville, men of Earth. It was a good feeling, Kirk discovered. A very good feeling.
Some of the men came in from the meadow. The fifteen from the scout were all taken. The Orville men had suffered some casualties in the way of burns and shock, but no fatalities.
"Good," said Kirk. He looked at the Orionids. "Where can we put 'em for safekeeping?"
Vinson said, "The local jail is pretty small, but I guess we could pack them in."
"It won't be for long," said Kirk. "The high brass will take them off your hands in a hurry."
"We'll see to it," said Vinson. "I guess you'll want to call New York. And don't worry about the women, I'll stop by the house and let them know we're okay."
"Thanks," said Kirk. He went out across the meadow to the house, and put in his call to Charteris.
After that things happened with desperate speed. A fleet of air-cars descended on Orville and the Kirk house. Charteris was with them. He inspected the Orion scout, conferred briefly with his aides, and then spoke to Kirk.
"I suppose I should apologize, Commander," he said, rather stiffly, "but I'm not going to. In our position we have no choice but to suspect any force too strong for us to deal with easily."
"I don't care about anything," said Kirk, "except to get my squadron off the ground before Orion strikes."
Charteris nodded. "Your squadron is being fitted for action now. I suggest we return to New York at once to confer with Admiral Laney and decide strategy."
The next few hours were hectic ones. Orders, preparations, requisitions, arguments. And Kirk found himself up against a totally unexpected stumbling-block—the stiff-necked, stubborn pride of Earth.
"We recognize perfectly," Admiral Laney said frostily, "our position as a fifth-rate naval power, but we have never yet run from battle and we don't intend to start doing it now."
"But against Orion Sector's two crack squadrons—"
"We're grateful for the presence of the Fifth Lyra," said Laney, "but our own ships will bear the brunt of the attack."
"Sir," said Kirk, and he meant it, "I would be proud to fight under you. But facts are facts. I think you understand that the Fifth Lyra has a certain pride too. But we're not going to bear the brunt of any attack where we know in advance we're outnumbered two to one. In short, if you meet Solleremos head on, you meet him alone."
"Now here," he went on, turning to the huge depth-chart of the Solar System, "was my thought. We know from the vera-ray examination of the captain of that Orion scout, that the scout's take-off was literally to be the signal for the attack. They didn't dare risk a radio message, even in code, that might be intercepted. So the course of take-off, on the exact coordinates of the hidden fleet, was to serve as a message. They could spot this by ultra-wave scanner, using relays at previously-arranged points in deep space. So, we have the coordinates—"
He wrote them down on the chart.
"Carried to point of convergence, that would put the Orion fleet about there—far off this chart, of course, but roughly south-east of the star Saiph. They will presumably attack along this line—" He drew one, bold and red, a dagger pointed at Earth's heart.
"Roughly nadir-point zero six, from our viewpoint," said Laney. "Well?"
"Here," said Kirk, "you seem to have a natural sort of chevaux-de-frise, to borrow an ancient term."
He pointed to a blurred and speckled area lying between Mars and Jupiter.
"The Asteroid Belt," said Laney. "Yes. We know our way around in it, but anyone else would find it hard going." His eyes brightened. "Plenty of places for ambush. Yes, I see what you're driving at. If we could entangle their superior forces in the drift—"
"Exactly. Bait them in there, harry them all you can. Now, then. They'll be expecting to catch the Fifth Lyra on the ground. As far as they know, Tauncer succeeded and all is well. So perhaps they won't be too watchful. We'll be up here hiding above the Sun, screened by it from their radar. When you have them hooked—"
He made a downward slashing motion with his hand.
"That suits me," said Laney. He shook hands with Kirk solemnly. Then he turned to Charteris and the others who were gathered with anxious face? in the conference room. "I think we may as well get started."
Charteris sighed. He picked up the intercom and spoke into it briefly.
Northward, the fields around Orville were brightening with a new day. In the meadow behind the Kirk house the briars and the Queen Anne's Lace were beaten down by the passage of men and trucks. They were all gone now except for one truck with massive electronic equipment, pulled back to a safe distance from the Orion scout. The necessary changes had been made in the ship's control system. Now the crew of the truck waited for a signal from the house.
It came.
The truck crew went to work, activating the remote-control relays, setting up a locked-in series of coordinates. Then the firing key was pressed.
With every semblance of life, the Orion scout took off on its destined course—a Judas goat, empty and silent, with no living thing inside its hull.
Standing on the steps of the Vinson's house, Lyllin watched it rise and vanish in the blue air. She had had one short call from Kirk.Wait there. I'll come back.Now the small dying thunder of the scout-ship's flight seemed like the receding footsteps of everything she had ever loved, passing over the distant hills.
She turned slowly and went back into the house.
CHAPTER IX
The sky screamed light, beneath them. The Sun, its atoms ceaselessly riven and then reborn, shrieked raving energy, magnetism, electricity, light, radiant heat, a rage across the heavens, a cosmic storm flinging up wild plumes and spindrift of violet calcium, of yellow sodium, of blue and red and purple.
Over it, as over a limitless fiery ocean, hung the shoal of silver ships. Tossed and twitched by storms of radiation, wrenched by the mighty claws of the titan magnetic field, scorched by the blaze of the star, they fought to hold position. Their formation wavered, sagged, re-formed and wavered again, and still they held together.
On the bridge of theStarsong, clutching a stanchion as the deck heeled and shuddered under him, Kirk stood with Garstang watching the screens.
"Not a sign!" said Garstang in his ear. "And we can't sit up here forever!"
The rim of the Asteroid Belt showed on one screen, a jagged wheeling of rock fragments, dust and pebbles and little naked worlds, black on their shadow-sides flashing like heliographs where they caught the light. Beyond them was space, very deep, very dark, very empty, looking toward Orion and his pendant sword.
In that deep emptiness out there, five ships moved slowly. Earth ships, behaving like a normal patrol. The remainder of Earth's fleet was hidden among the asteroids. Even the searching rays that fed the screen could not see them.
Suddenly Garstang caught Kirk's shoulder. "There!" he said. He leaned forward and pointed his blunt forefinger at the screen.
Out of the depths toward the star Saiph came a swarm of tiny flecks that might have been nothing more than bits of cosmic drift, except that they moved together and very fast. They swept in toward the Solar System with a gathering rush, growing, picking up the sunlight on their polished sides. Two full squadrons of Solleremos' fleet, on planetary approach.
The five Earth ships out there wheeled in perfect formation and went on out to meet them.
Kirk's mouth was dry. Runnels of sweat crept down his temples, down his body. The palms of his hands were clammy.
"Screen's gone again," he said, and swore.
The screens blazed useless white, even the powerful rays that served them wrenched and cut by an outburst of solar electricity. Then they cleared again.
The Earth ships had not gone far out. Suddenly they wheeled again, abandoning formation now. Spurts of light came from their launching tubes in quick rotation, each ship firing as she bore on the target. Then they cracked on speed and ran for the Belt.
One of the Orionid cruisers burst into a great flame and was gone.
Garstang shouted, and as though at a signal the screen went out again.
Kirk ran his uniform sleeve over his face, and kept still. There were so few of the Earth ships, and so many of the others, something more than double the strength of his own squadron. Far below, Earth lay naked, stripped, utterly without defense. Kirk thought of Lyllin, and the Vinson house with the dusty road in front of it. He thought of the woods and the meadow where they had fought in the night, and curiously enough he thought of the cat. Insolent little beast....
He waited for the screen to clear, and watched.
A number of Orion ships detached themselves from the main fleet and raced after the Earth ships. They were much faster. The long aim of Solleremos was reaching swiftly now, and one of the Earth cruisers winked out with a brave, brief burst of flame. The other four reached the Belt.
The Orionids plunged in after them.
"Now," whispered Garstang. "Now, now—"
The eight Orionid cruisers, apparently detailed to mop up this patrol, sped down a deceptively open "lead" through the asteroid drift. The scanner beams swung to a better angle to follow them, and now the screen showed a closer view of that stony wilderness. The Earth ships had vanished. The lead pinched out in a cul-de-sac of wildly gyrating rocks. The Orion cruisers did a fast-about, practically on each others' heels, but before they were finished the four Earth ships and half a dozen others appeared from nowhere, all around them.
"Hit them," muttered Garstang. "Oh, hell, get onto it andhitthem!"
They hit them. There was a quick holocaust of light-bursts and the Orionid cruisers in there were gone.
"That hurt them," said Garstang. "They're hooked—"
He turned and looked at Kirk. Kirk lifted his hand, his body bent slightly forward, his eyes intent upon the screen.
Out there in the Asteroid Belt, the trap was sprung. And now the Orionids knew they had the whole Earth fleet, such as it was, to deal with—a force too small to stop them, but too formidable to leave on their flank and rear. The squadrons altered course, curving in a long bow-shaped line toward the Earth ships that hovered, in apparent doubt, above the fringes of the drift.
Kirk brought his hand down in a slashing gesture. "Now!"
The Fifth Lyra swooped out of the sun.
Now.
Now is the moment, the one right time, there will not be another. Either you make it or you don't. Outnumbered, outmanned, and outgunned the element of surprise is all you've got.
The Sun falls behind, the edge of the Belt shifts and tilts and swings as you cut the plane of the ecliptic. Out of the furnace into the fire, at full drive.
The long line of the Orion ships is very beautiful, strung against the glittering emptiness of space.
TheStarsonggroans and quivers like a living thing. You can hear the beating of her heart, the pounding throb of power pushed to the limit, and beyond. Garstang, in the captain's place, has a face of iron, dark and still. Sweat shines on the edges of it. The men are quiet.
The Commander is afraid.
Ships, lives, men, a planet. Who would sayNow!and not be afraid?
The Orion fleet springs at the viewports. The ships grow large, the intervals between them widen out. TheStarsongflies at the point of a wedge shaped like an axe-blade. Behind her, on either side, the squadron follows in close formation.
In a tight, flat voice, the Commander says, "Prepare to engage."
The Fifth Lyra, the falling wedge, the axe-blade, hits the line of cruisers from above and cuts it in two.
Instantly the close-held wings fan out, driving the severed sections apart, opening the gap so wide it can never be closed again. Shells burst, little blinding suns, little fountains of hellfire, racking the ships, burning them, destroying them. But the wings sweep on. Part of the Orionid line is rolled up and driven into the drift of the Belt, where the Earth ships strike and strike again, and the proud cruisers with the polished sides become wreck and flotsam to join the cosmic debris in its endless journey around the Sun. The other section is driven outward into space, back toward Orion.
And theStarsonghunts down theBetelgeuse, flagship of Solleremos' fleet.
Kirk says, If we can get her, I think the rest will all go home. Fire One—
Fire Two.
TheBetelgeuseanswers, and space is drowned in a flaming cloud. TheStarsongstaggers and men are thrown down on the reeling iron deck. A red light flares on the telltale board. Somewhere deep in the ship's vitals the bulkhead doors slam shut, sealing off. TheStarsonghas a hole in her and some men have died, but she's still alive, still strong to move and strike.
Fire Three.
TheBetelgeusedives clear and her own tubes spout hellfire, a double flowering of death and destruction. TheStarsongwrenches away, desperate, shaken, and once more the ports are filled with fire and a red light glimmers on the board.
Fire Four.
TheBetelgeusequivers strangely. With a dreamlike slowness two pieces of her appear out of the brilliance and the flame, bow and stern at odds with each other, going different ways. Then there is a white blinding flash, and she is gone.
And the Orion fleet, leaderless, surprised, mauled and clawed and wounded, is pulling out. One by one, in pairs, in little groups, they turn tail and streak for open space, and are gone.
The Fifth Lyra and the ships of Earth follow them, but not far. Space is empty, and in the ships there is a great silence, while the men breathe softly and look at nothing and feel that they are still alive. There is no light now but the light of the Sun and the distant stars. The Belt wheels on its way, and bits of riven metal that once were ships fall slowly toward it.
After a time, on the bridge of theStarsong, Garstang turned to Kirk. His face was sweating and wild, and his eyes had a dazed look. He said, "What now?"
"We wait and see what," said Kirk. "Maybe nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Solleremos has missed his spring. I've an idea he may prefer to make like it all never happened, if we don't give any official news of this fight. I think Charteris will see it that way."
Charteris did. The battle couldn't be kept secret really, but Earth's authorities pretended that it had never happened. There was no profit in starting a full-fledged war, and there wouldn't be one if Solleremos had learned his lesson.
He had learned it, it seemed. From Orion there was a long silence. Then came a routine congratulation on the Commemoration. The Governor of Orion Sector, it appeared, was happy for Earth.
"The so-and-so must be raging, but he won't trythatagain," said Kirk.
To him, and to the Squadron, had come another message, from Ferdias. Well done. That was all. But from Ferdias, it was plenty.
And the Commemoration blazed, on Earth. The lights, the bands, the speeches, and then the fly-over—the battered mighty giants of the Fifth roaring across the sky with the even more battered Earth cruisers leading the way.
From its museum they had brought the first of all the space-ships, and everyone held their breath and kept fingers crossed while it lurched, coughed and wobbled up into the sky, and labored bravely around the planet, and by some miracle came down safe again.
And the great day was over.
Garstang, looking strange now in the black uniform of Earth, spoke earnestly to Kirk the day before the Fifth was to leave.
"You know you're pretty much a hero here now, Kirk. You'll be retiring from service in not too many years. Why don't you come back to Earth to live?"
"Why does everyone say, comebackto Earth," Kirk complained. "Just because I had ancestors here I'm no Earthman!"
He added, "And whatever you do, don't mention that bright idea to Lyllin! I'm going up to Orville now to get her."
Garstang only smiled at him, a queer sort of smile.
Kirk drove up through the quiet roads, the green countryside. The golden sun was soft upon his face. The breeze held a faint, smoky tang of oncoming fall. Earth's fall—he'd heard about that.
Peaceful, beautiful—but it was no world for him! Come "back" to Earth, indeed! Why, he'd lived on many worlds and none of them had ever got that kind of sentimental hold on him. Though he could understand why people felt that way about this old place—
Hell, he must be getting sentimental himself! He put a curb on such thoughts and drove on. And when he drove into Orville, there were frantic handwavings from every street-corner, his name was shouted by the kids along the sidewalks.
Vinson came running out of his house to meet him when he pulled up.
"Your wife's over at your house," Vinson explained. He shook hands. He was vastly excited and proud. "You know what—the village is going to put up a plaque. With all our names on it. Just saying, 'They fought the Battle of Orville'. Nothing else, account of diplomacy."
Kirk said, "It deserves the plaque, that fight. If you chaps hadn't turned out that night—"
"Hear you're leaving tomorrow," Vinson went on. "Thought I'd keep your old place going better, while you're gone, by working the fields. I'll keep an eye on your house, too."
Kirk said, "What makes you think I'm coming back?"
Vinson said, puzzledly, "Why, you are, aren't you? I mean—you're an Orville boy—this is your real home—"
Kirk suppressed the impatient words he'd been about to utter. No use upsetting a nice guy. He said, "Oh, sure, I'll be back—"
He drove on to the old house. Lyllin sat on the porch. He saw, to his surprise, that on her lap there cozily reclined a large black cat.
Lyllin smiled. "I think I've been accepted. By the people here—and by Tom."
Tom yawned and looked with insolent green eyes at Kirk. "His sides are bulging," Kirk said. "You've been bribing the beggar with food."
She laughed. "I don't know how he'll like space-travel. But we'll be bringing him back some day."
"Will we?" said Kirk.
She looked up at him. "Joe Garstang was talking to me. Youwillbe retiring from active service in a few years. And I like it here now, Kirk. I really do."
He said, loudly, "Why in the world must everyone assume that Iwantto come back to this place? Will you tell me that?"
"Don't you?"
He started to answer, then didn't. He looked out from the porch of the old house, at the sunset light sweeping the green valley, at the old trees beyond the fields, at everything that had somehow got a queer grip on him without his knowing it.
He said, "Well, I don't know. Maybe."
Lyllin smiled.
That night the Fifth went skyward in a great thundering that rolled louder and louder across the cities and the countryside. Great black bulks flying up fast across the glittering sky, roaring, bellowing, shouting a gigantic farewell down to the watching millions as they rushed out toward the stars.