Still the excitement beat at him. He projected his thoughts beyond the immediate future to the bright burning of the Oholo System, the atomic prairie fire skipping from sun to sun at the core, leaving the planets ashes—while isolated, the periphery worlds would one by one capitulate to Knoug power, to Knougwill, and become infected with Destiny.
Beyond that?
The doubt came, and he cringed mentally.
He was guilty of something.
His hands whitened on the sill, and staring into the fog he tried to bring all of the weight of Empire to his support.
But there was the memory of revolt by Knougs themselves on a tiny, distant moon.
The depression came back.
... It took the Oholo four nights to locate him.
CHAPTER VII
The strain on his face—the heaviness of his eyes—the taut lines of his throat. His body was exhausted.
Like dripping water the pressure pounded at him.
The night before, she had found him at Long Beach.
He cast off the depression to find euphoria; and the two alternated steadily with increasing peaks.
His hands were nervous. Blunt thumbs constantly scrubbed blunt fingertips in despair or anticipation.
... The trucking had all been arranged for.
The deliveries from the Ship occurred nightly. He had sent follow-up letters to cities who had not responded to his first request. The answers had finally arrived.
The warehouse, floor by floor, was filling. Already some trucks were waiting.
There was the continual bump of handled packages sliding from the chute, being sorted, being stacked. But worries piled up inside of him: fears of an accident, a broken package, a suspicious employee, a fire.... The Oholo, the guilt, the depression.
Eagerly now he listened to the general information report from the Ship. Most advancemen were on schedule. No irreparable accidents. Certain inaccessible areas had been written off. A few advancemen recalled for necessary Ship duty. One killed, replaced, in Germany. World coverage estimated at better than seventy per cent in industrial and near industrial areas, a coverage probably exceeding the effective minimum—short only of the impossible goal.
He had been talking to a trucker in front of him without really hearing his own words, his fingers and thumbs rubbing in increased tempo.
He hated the man as he hated everyone in the building, everyone on the planet.
The trucker shrugged. "I'll have to deadhead back. That has to go in the bill, too."
"All right," Parr snapped irritably. "Now, listen. This is the most important thing. Each of the lots has to be mailed at the proper time. Your bonus is conditional on that."
"Okay," the trucker said.
"I can't overstress the importance of that," Parr said. He handed the slip of paper across the table. It was a list of mailing information, Ship compiled, that was designed to assure that the packages would all be distributed by the mails as near simultaneously as possible.
"You deliver the Seattle lot, that's number, ah, eighteen on the list, the last."
"I understand."
"When your trucks are loaded, you may leave. I'll pay you for lay-over time."
"I've got a bill here," the trucker said.
The two huddled over it, and after the trucker had gone Parr leaned back staring at the ceiling, his nerves quivering.
He knew what he was guilty of, at last. Knowledge came suddenly, from nowhere like an electric shock, and it stunned him. Logically he demanded proof; but there was no proof. It came, it was; it was beyond logic. Nothing in his memory ... and for a moment he thought he had lost the memory under Lauri's first vicious assault ripping into his mind; but, and again without reason, he knew it was not in the memory she had destroyed. She was connected with it, but not like that.... He was guilty of treason. He could not remember the act, but he was guilty. What? When? Why? He did not know; he was guilty without knowing what the treason was: only the overpowering certainty of his guilt. Wearily he let his head droop. Treason....
"Mister Parr?"
"Eh? Eh?"
"There's somethin' heavy in this one. It don't feel like paper. I think it's metal of some sort. Now, look, Mister Parr, I don't want to get tied up with somethin' that's not square. You said all these packages had paper in them. And I'd kinda like to see what else there is in this one, Mister Parr, if you don't mind."
Parr wanted to jump out of the seat and smash at the man's face. But he forced himself to relax.
"You want to open the package, is that it?" he said, gritting his teeth.
"Yes, Mister Parr."
"... Then go ahead and open it."
Having expected refusal, the worker hesitated.
"Go ahead," Parr insisted. He kept his face expressionless, although, beneath desk top level, his hands bundled into knobby fists, white at the knuckles.
Then at the last possible second, as the worker's fingers were fumbling at the wrapping, Parr leaned forward. "Wait a minute. It won't be necessary to waste the parcel.... Unless you insist."
The worker looked at Parr uncomfortably.
A question of timing. Events hung in a delicate balance between exposure and safety. Parr reached for the drawer of the desk, his movements almost too indifferently slow.
His hand fumbled inside the drawer. "I think I have some of the metal samples around here," he said. His hand found the stack of gleaming dummy disks, encircled it possessively. He tossed them carelessly on the desk top and one rolled, wobbling, to the edge and fell to the floor.
Puzzled, the worker bent to the one that had fallen, picked it up, turned it over in his hand, studying it curiously.
"I don't see ...," he said suspiciously.
"That's our product," Parr lied. "We include some in every hundred or so bundles. The literature explains their function."
The worker shook his head slowly.
"As you can see," Parr persisted gently, "they're perfectly harmless." He tensed, waiting.
"... Yeah, uh ... I think I get it. Something like them hollow cement bricks they use to cure people of rheumatism with, huh?"
Parr swallowed and relaxed. "That's the general idea. You'll see.... Well, if you want to, go ahead and open the parcel."
"Naaah," the man said foolishly. "... There wouldn't be no sense in doin' that."
Beneath the desk top again, his hands coiled and flexed in anger and hatred. "I want your name," Parr said, a very slight note of harshness in his voice.
The worker let his eyes turn to the backs of his heavy hands, guiltily. "Look, Mister Parr, I didn't mean...."
Parr silenced him with an over-drawn gesture. "No, no," he said, his voice normal and conciliatory. "I meant, we might be able to use a man like you in our big plant in the East." He snarled inwardly at himself for the unnecessary note of harshness before: it was too soon for that.
Suddenly stammering with excitement, the worker said, "My name's George ... George Hickle ... George Hickle, Mister Parr. I got good letters from back home about my workin', sir."
"Where do you live, George?"
"Out on Bixel.... Just up from Wilshire, you know, where...."
"I meant the number of the house, George."
"Oh," George told him.
Parr wrote it down. "George Hickle, uh-huh."
"I'll be mighty obliged, Mister Parr, if you'll keep me in mind."
"Yes. Well. Good afternoon, Hickle. You ought to be getting back to your work now, hadn't you?"
And when the worker had half crossed the room, Parr drew a heavy, black line through the name. He had memorized it.
The pencil lead broke under the pressure.
And at that moment, the pressure in his mind vanished.
In automatic relief, he relaxed his shielding for the first time in what seemed years, and before he could rectify the error Lauri hit him with everything she had, catching him just as the shield began to reform.
Pain roared in his mind. From the force of the blow he knew that she must be near the warehouse.
It had been one quick thrust, leaving his mind throbbing and he sobbed in impotent hate and anger.
The pressure was back.
And slowly and surely she was closing in on him, compensating. She had struck prematurely, realized her mistake, and was narrowing the range, holding the final assault until assured of victory.
He stood up weakly and hurried to the door, brushing through a group of startled workers.
Outside, a cab was cruising, and Parr ran after it. It did not stop. He turned and ran frantically in the opposite direction, rounded the corner, still running, his heels thudding on the hot pavement.
He ran for blocks, the blood pounding in his head, sweat trickling into his eyes. Pedestrians turned to stare, looking back along his line of flight.
When Parr stopped, finally, he was trembling. He stared at his own hands curiously, and then he looked around him.
He swallowed hard. The world swam, steadied. His chest rose and fell desperately....
At the airport, he phoned the warehouse.
"Hickle? Get me Hickle.... Hello, Hickle, this is Parr. Listen, Hickle, are you listening? Hickle, I've got to leave town for two days. You've got to run things. You understand? Listen. I've left money in the drawer of my desk ... for the pay roll.... You know how to run things, don't you, Hickle?... Now, listen, Hickle, there's some trucking ... wait a minute.... Look.... You stay down there. Right there. I'll phone you back, long distance, later. Don't go away, Hickle. Wait right there. I'll tell you what you've got to do."
The last call for his plane came over the loudspeaker.
"Listen, Hickle, I've got to run. I'll phone you later, so wait. Wait right there, Hickle!"
Over Bakersfield, gratefully—infinitely gratefully—he felt the last wisp of pressure vanish.
He was free.
There was no consequence powerful enough to keep him from dropping his mind shield entirely. But he let it come down slowly, barrier by barrier, enjoying the release, prolonging the ultimate freedom beyond.
At last the roar of the motors, muffled, sang in his head like an open song, and there was nothing between his thoughts and the world.
His mind stretched and trembled and pained from the stress, and quivered and fluttered and pulsed and throbbed and vibrated and rejoiced.
He looked out over the wing, through the whirring propellers, at the hazy horizon, at the cloudless sky, bright and blue and infinite.
It was the best day he had ever known. It was freedom, and he had never known it before.
His mind was infinitely open as the sky above the clouds, and he stretched it out and out until he forced the limit, beyond which no mind may go, yet wanting to plunge on.
In the east, there was the dusk of night coming down, a cloak pulled up from the other side of the world by the grapple hooks of dying sunshine.
In San Francisco he phoned Hickle in Los Angeles, a man and a place so far removed that he wanted to shout to make himself heard over the telephone.
Then to a hotel—but now as a place of rest and refuge, not a symbol of flight and fear. His hate returned, beautiful, now, flower-like, delicate, to be enjoyed. To be tasted, bee-like, at his leisure.
The city outside was a whirl of lights and the lights hypnotized him with their magic. Soon he was in the streets.
There were cabs and scenes: laughter, love, death, passion—everything rolled into a capsule bundle for him. The city spread out below in a fabric of light, the hazy blue of cigar smoke closely pressing sweaty bodies, laughing mouths. A swirl of sensations.
"Somewhere else!" he cried madly to a driver.
China Town, The International Settlement, Fisherman's Wharf.... The cabbies knew a tourist.
He had been moving for hours, and now he was tired and lost, and he could not find a cab to get back to the Sir Francis Drake.
A girl and a sailor passed. A tall lithe blonde with a pert nose and high cheek bones and brown eyes, heavy lips and free hips ... a ... blonde.
The Oholo ... Lauri ... was a blonde.
He began to cast up memories of her, sickeningly, making his fists clench.
He wanted a blonde to smile at him, unsuspecting. A blonde with honey colored hair and a long, slim throat with a blue vein in it, so he could watch the heart beat. He wanted to hurt the blonde, and hold her, and caress her softly, and ... most of all, hurt her.
He wanted to shake his fists at the sky and scream in frustration.
He wanted to find a blonde....
Finally he found one. In a small, red-fronted bar, dimly lit. She was sitting at the end of the bar, facing the door, toying with a tall drink, half empty, from which the ice had melted.
"What'll it be, Mister?"
"Anything! Anything!" he said excitedly as he slipped behind a table, his eyes still on the woman at the bar.
"And the same for me?"
"Sure. Sure."
She brought back two drinks, picked up a bill, turned it over in her hand speculatively. She wore an off the shoulder dress, and high rouge on her Mexican cheeks. She made change from her apron, putting the money beside the second glass, sitting down in front of it, across from him.
Still he had not noticed her.
Two patrons entered. They moved to a table in the far corner near the Venetian blinds of the window and began to talk in low husky voices.
"I'll be back, dearie," the woman across from Parr said, sipping her drink, smearing the glass rim in a veined half moon.
She went to serve the girls.
When she came back Parr had brushed away the drink from in front of him.
"Listen, dearie," she said. "You got troubles?"
He grunted.
She snaked an ample hand half across the table and wiggled her shoulders to show off her breasts. "I bet I know what's wrong with you. Same as a lotta men, dearie. Want a little fun, I bet."
"Bring me that blonde," he said hoarsely.
"Listen, dearie, you don't want her. What you want...."
"The blonde!"
Reluctantly she stood up, frightened by his tone. She put a hand over his change, waited.
He did not notice.
She put the money into her apron pocket, heaving her chest.
Then she got the blonde.
"You wanna buy me a drink, honey?" the blonde said.
"Sit down!"
The blonde turned to the Mexican. "Make it a double." She sat down.
"Talk!"
"Whatdaya wan' me to say, honey?"
"Just talk." He had seen the pulse in the vein in her neck. The neck was skinny, and the face was pinched, lined with heavy powder. Her eyes were weary, and her thin hands moved jerkily.
"Just talk."
When she saw his wallet, as he brought it out to pay, she said, "Maybe we oughtta go somewhere to talk." Her voice was flat and nasal, and she tossed her head. She ruffled her coarse dirty-colored hair with an automatic gesture.
Parr wanted to kill her, and his hands itched at the delicious thought.
But not tonight. Not tonight. He was too tired. He ... tonight he just wanted to think about it. And then he wanted to sleep and rest and think.
She tossed off the drink. "Another one, Bess," she said shrilly, glancing at him.
He took two bills out of his wallet, two twenties, put them on the table, pushed one of them toward her without looking at it.
She drank two more shots quickly, eagerly, hungrily, as if there was need to rush through them and get them safely inside.
She leaned across the table, her eyes heavy. "I'm gonna talk, okay? Man wants to hear woman talk. Get yer kicks like that, okay. You're buyin'.... Hell, I bet you think I'm a bad girl. I'm not a bed girl—bad girl." Her hands twitched drunkenly below her flat breasts. "There was a sonofabitch in my town.... I came from up north, Canada." She drank again, hastily. "I could go for you, know what?... I'm getting drunk, that's what. Fooled ja, didn't I? Listen. You wouldn't believe this, but I can cook. Cook. Like hell. Wouldn't think that, eh? Hell, I'm good for a lotta things. Like being walked on. Jever wanna—walk on a girl? Listen. I knew a guy, once...."
Parr said, "Shut up!" For one instant, there was sickness and revulsion, and desire to comfort her, but it vanished almost before it was recognized.
She closed her mouth.
He pushed the twenty dollar bill into her lap.
"You be here tomorrow. Tomorrow night."
"Okay."
"You be here tomorrow night."
"Sure, sure, honey."
"You be here tomorrow night, and don't forget it."
She smiled drunkenly. "I'm here ... most nights, honey...."
"You be waiting for me."
"I'm always ... waitin', honey. Ever since I remember, honey, waitin'. Just waitin', honey."
But the next morning, when Parr awoke, Lauri was trying to center on his open mind. She was in San Francisco, looking for him.
The depression came back, and the guilt—the knowledge of treason—that made him want to go to a mirror and stand, watching blood trickle down his face in cherry rivulets like tears.
And fear.
When he shielded, she resumed the pressure.
At noon he was back in Los Angeles. Perspiration was under his skin, waiting icily.
He went directly to the warehouse.
Hickle, in surprise, crossed the room to him. "Mister Parr!" he said.
The right corner of Parr's mouth was twitching nervously. "Get a chair. Bring it to the desk."
When Hickle was seated before him, Parr said, "Okay. I've got some papers. I'm going to explain them to you." He got them out. "They're all alike in form. Here." He took off the top sheet and Hickle stood up to see. "This number, here, is for the truck unit." He circled it and scribbled the word "truck." "This number." He circled it. "This number is the lot number. You see, truck number nine has lots seventeen, twenty-seven, fifty-three, thirty-one."
"I get it," Hickle said.
Parr's body was trembling and he threw out a tentative wave of thought probing for the Oholo, afraid that she might come silently, knowing his approximate daytime location. He began to talk rapidly, explaining.
It was D-Day minus seven.
After fifteen minutes, he was satisfied that Hickle understood the instructions.
"There was a plain bundle this morning?"
"Yes, sir. I wondered about that."
"Get it."
Hickle got it.
Parr opened it. "Pay roll money, trucker money. Give the truckers their money when they give you their bills. I'm going to trust you, Hickle."
Hickle gulped. "Yes, sir."
Parr began to stuff money into his wallet.
She was in Los Angeles. He knew by the pressure on his mind.
"I've got to hurry. Listen. I want you to keep the workers here as long as necessary, hear? This schedule's got to be kept. And you take a thousand dollars. And listen, Hickle. This is just chicken-feed, remember that, when you're working for us."
"Yes, sir!"
He had her located, keeping his mind open to try to center on her.
He could center on her! She was only partially shielded, and she made no protest. She was not moving, and he could ... except that there was something wrong with the pressure. He was overlooking something. But she was not moving. Not yet.
"I've got to talk fast. All these final deliveries. You'll be busy. If you need help, hire it. And listen, I'll be here from time to time if I can."
"There's something wrong, Mister Parr?"
Parr searched for an excuse. "It's personal ... my wife, yes, my wife, it's...." He wondered why he had used that one. It had sprung automatically to his mind. "Never mind. I'll phone in from around town. I'll try to help you all I can by phone."
She was not moving, but the pressure seemed different ...alien!
He jerked out of his seat, kicking the chair over as he headed for the door.
A different Oholo!
There were two of them in Los Angeles!
He probed out.
Lauri was almost on top of him.
He skidded through the door, into the street, knocking a startled man out of his path.
He stared wildly in both directions. Several blocks away a cab was stalled with a red light.
And almost before him, a private car was headed uptown. With three huge leaps he was on the running board, yanking the door open.
He jerked himself in beside the frightened driver.
He twisted his head, shouting. "Emergency! Hospi...."
She had seen him trying to escape. She struck.
In the street, a flock of English sparrows suddenly faltered in flight, and one plunged blindly into the stone face of a building. The others circled hysterically, directionless, and two collided and spilled to the ground.
"Hurry, damn it!" Parr moaned at the driver. "Hurry!"
He slammed forward into the windshield, babbling.
The terrified driver stepped down on the accelerator. The car leaped forward.
Parr, fighting with all his strength, was twisted in agony, and blood trickled from his mouth.
He gasped at the driver: "Cab. Behind. Trying to kill me."
The driver was white-faced and full of movie chases and gangster headlines of shotgun killings, typical of Southern California. He had a good car under him, and he spun the wheel to the right, cutting into an alley; to the left, onto an intersecting alley; to the right, into a crosstown street; then he raced to beat a light.
He lost the cab finally in a maze of heavy traffic at Spring.
Parr was nearly unconscious, and he struggled desperately for air.
Run, run, run, he thought despairingly, because two Oholos are ten times as deadly and efficient as one....
CHAPTER VIII
D-Day minus four. General mailing day.
Parr, his mind fatigued, his body tense, phoned the warehouse twice, and twice received enthusiastic reassurances behind which he could hear the hum and clatter of parcels being moved, trucks being loaded ... cursing and laughing and subdued shouting.
How many hours now? His mind was clogged and stuffy and sluggish. An hour's sleep, ten minutes sleep—any time at all. If it could be spent in clear, cold,realsleep.
Eat, run. Always, now, he was running, afraid to stop longer than a few minutes. He needed time tothink.
And the pressure was steady.
Get away. Leave Los Angeles!
"Parr, Parr. This is Parr," he whispered hoarsely from the back seat of the moving cab into the comset.
The rhythm of the engine, the gentle sleepy swaying of the car and the monotony of the buildings lulled him. He caught himself, shook his head savagely.
Dimly he could understand the logic advising him to remain in the city. But it was not an emotional understanding and it lacked the sharpness of reality. For now the two Oholos could follow him easily, determining his distance and direction. If he left Los Angeles, the focus of the invasion, it would be difficult to return after postal delivery. After the invasion it would be nearly impossible. It would give the Oholos added time to run him down. But to remain.... His body could not stand the physical strain of four more days of continual flight, around, around, up Main—to the suburbs—to the ocean—back to Main again—down the speedway to Pasadena and through Glendale to Main. Change cabs and do it all over again.
"Yes?" the Advanceship said.
"I'm ... leaving. I've got to leave. I've got to." And suddenly, in addition to the other consideration, he was afraid to be there when the invasion hit. Was it because he was afraid they knew of his treason? Or ... was it because ... he liked the buildings? Strangely, he did not want to see the buildings made rubble....
The answer: "You have a job to do."
"It's done!" he cried in anguish. "Everything's scheduling. In a few hours now it'll be all over. I can't do anymore here."
A pause.
"You better stay. You'll be safer there."
"Ican't!" Parr sobbed. "They'll catch me!"
"Wait."
A honk. The purr of the engine. Clang. Bounce. Red and green lights.
"... If the mailings are secure, you have the Ship's permission. Do whatever you like."
Expendable.
Parr put the comset in his coat pocket and cowered into the seat.
"Turn right!" he said suddenly to the driver. "Now ... now.... Right again!"
He bounced.
He closed his eyes, resting them. "Out Hill," he said wearily without opening his eyes.
He withstood an irritated mental assault. They were tiring. But not as fast as he was.
The silent pursuit: three cars out of the multitudes, doggedly twisting and turning through the Los Angeles streets—separated by blocks, even by miles, but bound by an unseen thread that was unbreakable.
"I gotta eat, buddy."
Parr drew himself erect. "A phone! Take me to a phone!"
The taxi ground to a stop in a service station.
Nervously, Parr began to phone airports. Three quarters of his mind was on his pursuers.
On the third try he got promise of an immediate private plane.
"Have it ready!" he ordered. Then, dropping the receiver he ran from the station to the cab.
He jockeyed for nearly thirty minutes for position.
Then he commanded the driver to abandon the intricate inter-weaving and head directly for the airport in Santa Monica.
Shortly, the two other cars swung in line, down Wilshire.
The job of softening up Earth for the invasion began to pass entirely from the hands of the advancemen. From a ticklish, dangerous proposition at first to a virtual certain mailing day. The world wide mechanism of delivery swung into operation from time zone to time zone, and, in the scheme of conquest the advancemen passed from integral factors to inconsequential objects.
All over America, from East to West, within the space of a single day the post office became aware of the increased, the tremendously increased volume. Previously in certain sections there had been signals in the form of out-bound dribbles. Now there were in-bound floods rising suddenly to the peak intensity of overtime inundations. A million packages, some large, some small, some brown wrapped, white wrapped, light, heavy—no two alike, no way to tell the new influx from the normal handling.
At the very first each office saw the rush as a unique phenomenon—for there was no reason to report it to a higher echelon which might have instituted an investigation. Merely to take care of the rush, that was all. To process the all-at-once congestion of parcels to be door to door delivered. Later to be marveled at.
Lines formed at parcel windows; trucks spewed out their cargos. Lights burned late; clerks cursed and sweated; parcels mounted higher and higher.
Nor did it break all at once in the press. The afternoon editions carried a couple of fillers about how Christmas seemed to be coming early for the citizens of Saco, Maine, and how a tiny Nevada town whose post office was cob-webby from lack of use suddenly found itself doing a land office business.
Most of the morning editions carried a whimsical AP article that the late radio newscasters picked up and rebroadcast. Then after most West Coast stations were off the air for the night events began to snowball in the East.
The breakfast newscasts carried the first stories. The morning papers began to tie in the various incidents and reach astonishing conclusions....
The propeller was not even turning over. The plane, wheeled out of the hangar, was waiting, cold, and the pilot lounged by the office, smoking a cigarette.
The sky was black, and here and there before the blatant searchlights sprouting from dance halls and super markets, clumps of lacy California clouds fluttered like dingy sheepwool in a half-speed Mix-Master.
Parr, tossing a handful of bills at the driver, leaped from the cab and ran frantically toward the office.
The wait was terrible. Should the Oholos arrive, he was boxed in spaciously, with no escape. In gnawing at the inner side of his lower lip, he bit through his disguise into real flesh and real blood.
There were forms to sign, responsibility to be waived.
And with every minute,theydrew nearer.
Finally the airplane motor coughed into reluctant life, and Parr could feel the coldness of artificial leather against his back.
The ship shuddered, moved heavily, shifted toward the wind onto the lighted runway. The motor roared louder and louder and the ship trembled. Slowly it began to pick up speed, the wings fighting for lift.
A searchlight from the pier made a slow ring of light toward the invisible stars.
The ground fell away and Parr was on his way to Denver.
Almost immediately, with the pressure still on his mind but fading swiftly, he fell into a fitful sleep and dreamed of treason, while, in the background ominous clouds shifted and gathered to darken the sun of his native planet. Finally, all was a starless black except for half-forgotten faces which paraded before him, telling his treason with hissing tongues in words he could not quite grasp the meaning of.
The air of Denver was clear and bright—crystal clear, drawing in the mountains, opening up the sky like a bent back box top. The new sun seemed small.
Parr stood on a street corner acutely aware of the thin air and the bright clean sky. An open sky that seemed to be trying to talk to him. He snorted at the absurdity of the thought but he strained half consciously to listen.
He walked on, his feet tapping sharply on the concrete, his mind foggy from the uncomfortable sleep.
A building to the left momentarily reminded him of a slide shown long ago in a classroom on a distant planet, and he wondered if the picture had been taken in this city (knowing, deeply, that it could not have been).
Parr took a newspaper from a stand. Tucking it under his arm he continued to walk until he found a hotel.
He ate breakfast hurriedly in the annex and then rented a room with a radio. He went to it, lay relaxing on the bed, his mind open and free but uneasy again as he thought of treason.
"Parr," he said into the comset. "I'm in Denver."
"Have you escaped?"
"They will follow me," Parr said wearily. "But for the moment, I'm free."
"We'll send our Denver advanceman to you," the Ship said. "The two of you should be able to handle the Oholos."
Parr's mouth was dry. He named the hotel.
"Wait, then."
He lay back but felt no exultation. He tried to force it, but there was nothing.
And then, staring at the headlines, knowledge of success broke all around him and he was trembling and jubilant. He sprang up, paced the room, moving his hands restlessly.
He rushed to the window, looked out into the street. The people below passed in a thin nervous stream. Unusually few; many more were glued at home, waiting for the mail.
A postal delivery truck turned the corner, rolled down the street before the hotel. All action ceased; all eyes turned to watch its path.
Parr wanted to hammer the wall and cry, "Stop! Stop! I've got to ask some questions first! Stop! There's something wrong!"
Parr was shaking. He sat on the bed and began to laugh. But his laughter was hollow.
His victory—a Knoug victory.... He frowned. Why had he automatically made a differentiation where there should be none? He realized that the mailing success had released him from nervous preoccupation in Knoug work; for the first time he was free of responsibility, and he could think ... clearly ... about.... He wanted to hammer the terrifying newdoubtsout of his mind. But they gathered like rain clouds. He went to the mirror and fingered his face. "What's wrong? What's wrong?" Knoug victory had a bitter taste.
He suddenly pictured the civilization around him as a vast web held in tension by a vulnerable thread of co-operation, now slowly disintegrating as the thread crumbled. And he took no joy in the thought.
He began to let images float in his mind. Imagined scenes, taking place beyond the walls.
A man went in to pay off a loan, his pockets stuffed with money.
"I'm not taking it."
"Whatsa matter? It's legal tender. Yougottatake it."
Bills on the counter.
"You didn't earn that!"
"It don't matter."
"It isn't any good. Everybody's got it."
"That don'tmatter."
"It's worthless!"
"Yeah? Listen: 'For all debts, public and private....'"
Parr's mind reached out to grasp the unsettling immensity of it. He flipped on the radio, half heard an excited announcer.
Parr thought: All over the world, each to his own: coins, bills, dollars, rupees, pesos, pounds—how many million parcels were there? Each stuffed with enough to make its owner a man of wealth, as wealth was once measured.
Parr thought it was terrifying, somehow.
And the headline of the paper admitted: "No Test To Reveal Good Money From Bad."
(There was a mob. They were storming a liquor store, while the owner cowered inside. He was waiting for the police. But the police were too busy elsewhere, so finally, to salvage what he could before the mob took his stock for nothing he opened the door, crying, "Form a line! Form a line!")
Parr thought of the confusion that would grow.
Prices spiraling.
(In the United States Senate, a member took the floor to filibuster until California had its mail delivery and its fair share of the free money.)
This was the day work stoppages would begin.
FAMINE PREDICTED.... PRESIDENT IN APPEAL TO.... GUARD MOBILIZED....
Riots. Celebrations. (A church burned the mortgage gratefully.) Clean shelves. Looming scarcity.
By the time the sun dipped into the Pacific, the whole economic structure of the world would be in shambles.
Governments doubtless would blame each other (half-heartedly), propose new currency, taxes, and the gold standard again.
Industrial gears would come unmeshed as workers took vacations. Electric power, in consequence would begin to fail.
(Looting already occupied the attention of the better part of the underworld, and not a few respectable citizens decided to get it now and store it for use when it would be unavailable because others had done likewise.)
Stagnation tomorrow. But as yet, the fear and hysteria had not really begun. Parr shuddered, sickened. "What have Idone?"
It would take months to unmuddle the chaos.
Earth was ripe for invasion....
Parr aroused from a heavy stupor. The pressure was back. He moaned, and the knock on the door jolted him into startled animal movement.
The knob turned. Parr tensed, although he could tell that the Oholo team was still distant. "Who is it?"
The door opened and a disguised Knoug slipped through. Immediately behind him a simian-like Earthman towered. "Come in," the Knoug said. When they were inside, he shut the door.
"The Ship sent me over," the Knoug said. "You wanted help? My name's Kal. You probably remember me on Ianto?"
Parr swung his legs from the bed and stood up. "You feel the pressure?"
Kal rumbled angrily.
"Two Oholos," Parr said. "I've been dodging them."
"Two, eh? Okay. It's a good thing I brought Bertie along. Two, you say. Well I'll be damned."
Kal turned to the Earthman. "There'll be two, Bertie. So watch yourself...."
Bertie grunted noncommittally.
"Okay. Now like I told you, shoot when I give you the mental signal. You'll see the ones."
"Uh-huh," Bertie said, chewing complacently.
"Go on downstairs then."
Bertie hunkered forward and leered at Parr. "Sure. Sure."
"Hurry the hell up," Kal said.
Bertie shuffled to the door, opened it, left the room.
Parr swallowed uneasily.
Kal chuckled. "Good one, Bertie. Useful. Damn this pressure. Glad I brought him. They won't be looking for an Earthman, eh? So when they try to come in here after us, he'll drop 'em, eh?"
Parr wet his lips. "They're getting nearer."
"Relax," Kal said. He crossed to the bed and sat down. "The Fleet's out. It just came out. Did you hear?"
Parr felt a shock of surprise. He imagined the hundred powerful ships of the fleet coming, one by one, from the dead isolation of hyperspace. In his mind's eye he could see the faint glimmer of the static shield—the protective aura—form slowly in real space; he could imagine the ships safe within their electric sheaths which caught the hull-wrenching force of transition and dissipated it from the heavy steel plating. He could imagine one ship—perhaps one—popping out, shieldless, battered by the force vortex, and perhaps leaking air or ruptured entirely because the protective aura had collapsed under pressure. Then he saw the ships neatly pulling into formation, grouping for instructions, waiting for the attack signal.
"Day after tomorrow they attack," Kal said.
"They're closer," Parr whispered.
Kal concentrated. "Yeah. I feel them. Come to the window." He stood up and crossed the room in quick cat-like strides.
Parr followed him and the two of them stared down. Perspiration stood on Parr's forehead. After a moment they saw Bertie come out from beneath the hotel awning. He seemed small at a distance, and they saw him toss a cigarette butt carelessly to the sidewalk. He moved leisurely away from the entrance and leaned against the side of the hotel, one hand in his overcoat pocket.
Kal sneered, "You think they'll drive right up?"
Parr's face twitched. "I don't know ... if they know there's two of us...." He glanced left along the street. "I guess they will. I guess they'll try to come right in after us."
Kal chuckled. "That's good. That's damned good, eh?"
Parr turned to stare at him. "They're strong."
"They won't be looking for Bertie."
"Listen," Parr whispered hoarsely. "They're stronger than we are."
Kal snarled a curse.
"No," Parr said intently. "They are."
"Shut up!"
"Listen," Parr said. "I know. I've...."
Kal turned slowly. "They're not stronger. Theycouldn'tbe stronger. Even if Bertie misses, we'll get them. If they're so strong, why haven't they already carried the fight to us? If they're so strong, they should be ready to attack us, so why don't they?"
He turned back to the window.
"They're almost here," Parr said.
A cab turned the corner. "Feel them center on us?" Parr said, drawing down his shield as tightly as he could.
Kal, tense-faced, nodded.
Parr stared fascinated as the cab screeched to a halt.
Then Parr felt a wave of sickness and uncertainty; he reached out for Kal's elbow. "Wait!" he cried.
But already, below, Bertie jerked into explosive action.
He shot three times. The male Oholo pitched forward to the gutter.
Bertie's gun exploded once more, but the muzzle was aimed into the air. He crumpled slowly, and the gun clinked to the sidewalk from nerveless fingers.
"He got one," Kal said in satisfaction. "The other one must be quicker 'n hell."
Parr let out a tired sigh.
"That's that," Kal said. "... I'll be damned, a female Oholo! She won't dare to try two of us alone."
Parr's eyes were fixed below. In what seemed a dream, he watched her get out of the cab. She glanced up and down the street. She looked up, quickly, toward their window. And then she darted across the sidewalk toward the hotel entrance.
"I'll be damned!" Kal cried. "She's coming up anyway!" His eyes sparkled gleefully. He searched his lips with his tongue. "Let's both hit her now! She's near enough!"
"No!" Parr cried sharply. "No! Let her get closer.... Let's ... let's make sure we get her."
They could feel her nearing them, not quickly, not slowly, but with measured steps.
CHAPTER IX
She was just outside the door and Parr felt something like momentary confusion before the hate came. Yet when it did it was tinged and colored as he thought of her walking toward them, alone. He tried to concentrate on her remembered image, tried to call up the previous hate in all its glory. He could not; instead, even the hate he knew drained away. In its place he felt—not fear exactly—not fear for himself but of the inevitability of death. Not his death—hers.
He saw Kal's lips curl, and then he winced. Fingernails dug into his palms.
And the door opened and she stood before them. There was a breathless instant, absolutely still, while time hung fire. Her eyes were aflame. Eyes, he knew, that were capable of softness as well. Eyes steady, intent, unafraid. He was frozen in delicious surprise that tingled his spine, and he felt his scalp crawl. He also felt deep awe at her courage.
She came into the room, closed the door, stood with her back leaning lightly against it. Her eyes blazed into his.
Her red lips moved delicately. "Hello," she said. "I've been looking for you." She had not glanced at Kal.
"Now!" Kal cried wildly.
Parr wanted to scream something meaningless, but before the sound could bubble forth the room seemed to erupt into a colored blaze. She had struck at him with a lethal assault!
He reeled, fighting back for his life, conscious now of Kal fighting at his side.
Her eyes were steady, and her face frowned in concentration. She was icy calm in the struggle and there was cold fury in her whips of thought. But slowly, under their resistance, her eyes began to widen in surprise.
For a breath-held moment, even with the two of them against her, the issue seemed in doubt; Kal half crumpled, stunned by a blast of hot thought that seared away his memory for one instant.
She could not turn fast enough to Parr, nor could she, in feinting his automatic attack, strike again at Kal. Then again, the two of them were together, and slowly, very slowly, they hedged her mind between them and shielded it off.
Kal recovered.
Parr gritted his teeth in a mental agony he could not account for and stripped at her outer shield. Kal came in too and the shield began to break.
The Oholo still stood straight and contemptuous in defeat, her eyes calm and deadly as she still struggled against them.
She struck once; more with fading strength and Parr caught the thrust and shunted it away. And then he was in her mind.
He held a stroke that would burn like a sun's core, and almost hurled it. But there was a great calmness before him and he hesitated a fraction of a second in doubt as he stared deep into her glazing eyes. He felt his heart throb in new pain.
Kal struck over him, and the Oholo went limp, suddenly, and sank unconscious to the floor, a pathetic rag doll. A tiny wisp of thought struggled out and faded.
Kal cried in triumph and gathered for the final blow.
Great, helpless rage tore at Parr then, and almost before he realized it he sent a powerful blast into Kal's relaxing shield. Kal rocked to his heels, dazed, and his left hand went to his eyes. He whirled, lax mouthed, surprised.
"What...?"
"She's mine!" Parr screamed wildly, "She's mine!"
"The hell—"
In fury Parr slapped the other Knoug a stinging blow across the mouth. "Get out! Get out! Get out or I'll kill you!"
Kal's eyes glazed in surprise.
Parr was panting. "I'll finish her," he gasped. "Now get out!"
Kal's eyes met his for a moment but they could not face the anger in Parr's.
"Get out or I'll kill you!" Parr said levelly, his mind a welter of emotions that he could not sort out and recognize.
Kal rubbed his cheek slowly. "Okay," he said hoarsely. "Okay."
Parr let breath out through his teeth. "Hurry!"
Kal's lips curled. His shoulders hunched and he seemed about to charge. But Parr relaxed, for he saw fear in the Knoug's eyes. Kal straightened. He shrugged his shoulders indifferently, spat on the carpet without looking at Parr and stepped over the unconscious Oholo. He jerked the door open and without looking back slammed it behind him.
Parr was trembling and suddenly emotionally exhausted.
Parr's knees were water. He stared fascinated at the fallen Oholo. He sank to the bed. He let his thoughts touch her unconscious mind as it lay exposed and helpless, and he wondered why he did not strike the death blow. He tried to think of stripping her mind away slowly, layer by layer, until she lay a helpless babbling infant, her body weak and pliant to his revenge. But he thought of her clear eyes and he was sickened and ashamed.
He called up memories of Oholos—the captured few—and now for the first time he knew general respect rather than hate. And thinking of Knougs, he writhed.
Yet he was conditioned to hate and he was conditioned to kill. He must kill, for the conditioning was strong. He tried to fight down the revolt of his thoughts, and, in recognizing the revolt at last, knowledge came. The guilt of treason. Not for any act. His treason was doubt, and doubt was weakness, and weakness was death. He could not be weak for the weak are destroyed. But he seemed, for a heart beat, to see through the fabric of Empire which was not strength at all. No he thought, I've believed too long. It's in my blood. There's nothing else.
He went to the wash basin and drew a glass of water. He carried it to the Oholo, knelt by her head and bathed her temple with his dampened handkerchief until she moaned and threw an arm weakly over her forehead. Her hand met his, squeezed, relaxed, and was limp again.
He carried her to the bed and sat beside her, staring at her clear face, which was an Earthface. (I've been in this body too long, he thought, I'm beginning to think all wrong.) For the face was not without beauty for him.
He shook his head dazedly, trying to understand himself.
(Here is the enemy, he thought. How do I know? I have been told ever since I can remember. But is it true? Does saying it make it true? But what else can I believe? One must believe something!)
She opened her eyes, stared at him uncomprehending. He waited patiently as she gathered her loose thoughts and tied them down. She smiled uncertainly, not yet recognizing him.
Finally he could see understanding in her eyes.
"Your mind is too weak to fight," he said. "If you try to shield I will kill you."
Her lips curled. "What do you want?"
"Don't try to shield," he warned. He studied her face and his chest was tight. He looked away from her face.
"I've got to ask you some questions," he said. "After that, I'm going to kill you."
There was no fear in Lauri's eyes. "Go ahead," she said calmly. "Kill me."
"I ... I ... want to ask you something first," he said. "I've got to ask you some questions."
Her lips glistened and he felt sympathy that he could not understand. And seeing her frown, he shielded the thoughts from her.
"You're not ... quite like I thought you were," she said, very calmly.
"I am!" he snarled. "I am what you thought!" He was ashamed of the sympathy he had let her sense, and then he was ashamed of being ashamed, and his mind was confusion.
"Why did you—did you leave this planet as an unprotected flank, like this?" he said. It was a question, he knew, that had to be answered, before ... before ... what?
"They weren't ready to join us," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"They were not developed enough to join us," she said.
"Why didn't you conquer them!" he insisted. "You were strong enough. Why didn't you conquer them?"
She said: "We couldn't do that. We don't have any right to do that."
In that instant, it all became clear. Suddenly truth overwhelmed him, wave after wave, like a sickness. "No!" he cried. "No!" He dropped his head into his hands. "Lies," he murmured. "Lies, lies, lies!" He saw the wrongness, the terrible wrongness, and he searched desperately over his life for repudiation, an excuse. But he found none.
They had come to him and said, This is the law of life. And they took him and trained him, and showed him nothing else. He had been scarcely a child at the first school of soldiery, and they had fashioned his mind, a pliant mind, and ground doubts out (if there had been any.) They told him that the law was strength, and strength was destiny, and destiny was to rule those below, obey those above, and destroy those who did not agree. There were no friends and enemies—only the rulers and the ruled. And the ruler must expand or die of admitted weakness.
"It's all lies!" he said. He felt the crumbling away of the certainty he had lived by. And before the helpless Oholo he felt weak and defeated and suddenly he realized that his mind shield was down.
She reached out gently to touch him.
Below, a police siren wailed in the streets. A car for corpses.
He tried to shake the hand away. "They lied," he said. "They lied about everything. They lied that you were ready to conquer us. They told us you were cowardly and would kill us if we did not kill you first, and that we must take...."
She said: "It was worse than we thought. We did not think you were strong enough to attack us. Not here. We thought if we let you alone you would collapse of your own weight."
"I never knew," he said. "There wasn't any way to know. You have to do what everyone else does. You get to think they must be right." He made a small sound. "When I first came here—it started to bother me, when I saw the planet was unprotected—when I saw how strong you were.... But I had so many things to do. I was too busy to think. But I felt something at the very first about your presence here...."
She stirred restlessly on the bed. He knew that he was defenseless before her because she had recovered, but she did not strike out. "Trying to help them," she said. "A few of us came to help them. They needed us. We were trying to prevent a war. And a few more years—if we'd ... but that's gone now. You'll destroy it all."
He stood from the bed and it creaked.
"We were slowly changing their governments," she said. "We would have succeeded." He felt her mind slowly gather, and there was infinite bitterness, and he tensed. But still she did not strike at him.
"I want you to go," Parr said. "Before the other Knoug comes back. Get out."
Words damned up inside him. He had been trained to hate and trained to kill. The emotions were loose now. There was no outlet for them. He was frustrated and enraged. Hate bubbled about in him, fermenting. He had been trained to hate and to kill. Lauri winced as she felt the turmoil. "Get out!" he screamed.
The door crashed open.
Three figures lunged through.
"Lauri, thank God!" one of them cried. "We thought he'd killed you."
Parr suddenly found his arms held by two Oholos.
"We got here as soon as we could pick up your thoughts."
Lauri said, "Jen is already dead."
One of the Oholos slapped Parr's face savagely. "We'll kill this one for that!" he snarled.
Lauri sprang from the bed and sent the weapon spinning from the hand of the leader of the three Oholos. He gave a startled gasp. The weapon hit the carpet and slammed to rest against the far wall. "Don't!" she cried.
"You're crazy!" the leader snarled. "What's wrong with you?"
"He saved my life," Lauri said, panting.
"He's Knoug," the leader sneered. "You know damned well he was trying to use you for something or other."
Parr stared, fascinated. He was surprised to find that he was not afraid. The shock of capture had not yet passed, and he seemed to be watching a drama from which he was removed.
"No!" Lauri said. "No, he wasn't!"
"How can you say that, Lauri? Look what he's done! Look what he's already done!"
"Unshield, Parr, show them," Lauri commanded.
Parr hesitated, trying to divine the plot and see what was required of him.
"It's a trick," the leader said. "They've got some way to fool us, even with an open mind!"
Lauri's eyes were wide.
The leader jerked his hand. "Kill him," he instructed.
The Oholo on Parr's left released Parr's arm and reached inside his coat for a weapon.
Lauri darted across the room and pounced on the weapon lying at the base of the wall. She seized it and rolled over. She aimed it steadily at the Oholo on Parr's left. "Don't do that," she said. "Let him go." She got to one knee.
Parr felt the grip ease on his right arm. He stood free. And for the first time—with strange hope—the feeling of unreality vanished.
"You're insane!" the Oholo on Parr's right rasped.
She jerked the muzzle of the weapon. "I told you. He saved my life. He could have killed me. He didn't."
"A trick!"
"Get away from him!"
Reluctantly the two stood back, and the leader shifted uneasily on his feet.
"Don't you try it," Lauri suggested. "For all you know, I might really shoot. You aren't that quick."
Parr let out his breath.
"You!" she snapped at him. "Get to the door!"
Dazed, he obeyed her. He shook his head to clear it. He was afraid they would try to stop him.
"Open it!"
He opened the door and hesitated, looking at her.
"I'm coming," she snapped. Still covering the three Oholos she got to her feet and began to back toward him. "Don't follow," she warned the three before her.
"You know what this means?" the leader said. "You know what it means to help the enemy?"
"Go on out," she told Parr. "He saved my life," she said doggedly.
He obeyed. She followed him. She fumbled for the door knob, found it. "Run!" she cried. She slammed the door.
They ran desperately for the stairs. Their feet pounded on the soft carpet as they clattered down. She was almost abreast of him.
"Help me!" she cried when they passed the first landing.
And a moment later Parr knew what she meant. They were trying to tear into his mind, and she was holding them off with her own shield. He joined her as well as he could, marveling at the vast strength she had recovered.
"Hurry!" she cried. "I can't hold it much longer." She lurched into him and he put an arm around her waist.
And then they were through the lobby and into the silent street. No curious spectators were lingering to stare at the drying patch of dirty brown in the gutter beyond the awning.
"This way!" she cried.
As they fled on the pressure weakened. She was running fleetly at his side now, her brow unfurrowed, and yet he knew that she was still holding the shield under terrific pressure.
"In here," she gasped, suddenly turning into a narrow alleyway. "Stop!" she said. She half dragged him down to the pavement behind a row of packing crates.
"They'll be right after us!" he panted.
"No. Listen. Follow my lead. I think I can blanket us, if you help me."
Parr felt the warmth of her thoughts around him, and then they began to go up beyond his range and he had to strain to stay with them. Underneath her thoughts his mind began to quiet, and, in a moment he felt—isolation.
"Help, here," she said.
He saw the weakness and strengthened it. With her helping, he found the range less high, and he could almost relax under it. And their minds were very close together, and their thoughts were completely alone. "We're safe here," she whispered.
He listened to his own far away breathing, and heard hers, too, softer but labored.
They crouched, waiting, and the street before them was quiet in the sunlight, for the mail trucks were out, and no taxis moved. The city—for the moment—was deathly still and waiting uneasily. The high air was sharp in his lungs.
"They've missed us," she said at length. "Wait! They're.... They're after ... it's another Knoug. They think we've separated, and they think it's you."
"That would be Kal," Parr said. "He must have been waiting nearby." He brought out the comset. "He must have seen us come out together."
He flicked open the comset, heard, "... joined with the Oholos. Parr and the other just left the hotel together."
"He's told the Advanceship," Parr said to the girl.
"It doesn't make any difference," Lauri replied wearily.
And Parr breathed a nervous sigh, for the hate had found its channel. The Empire had made him unclean and debased him, and he had to cleanse himself. His vast reserve of hate shrieked out against the Empire; their own weapon turned against them.
"I'd like to get back to the Advanceship," Parr said. "If I could get back, I could smash in their faces!"
"Oh," she said.
The comset sputtered excitedly. "Three Oholos after me! They're armed! Must be new ones. The other two weren't armed!"
The comset was silent.
"Three?" Parr said. "That's right, there were three. I thought there were just five on the whole planet."
"There's about fifty now. They landed last night. Out in the Arizona desert. They're the only ones who could get here in time."
Parr felt elation. But it passed. "Fifty.... That's not enough to stop the invasion."
"It's all we could get here," Lauri repeated.
Parr groaned. "The Knougs will shield the planet tomorrow. It will trap those fifty on the surface. And us. They'll shoot us, if we're lucky. But I'd like to kill some first!"
The comset crackled, and the Ship voice said: "How many new ones altogether?"
"I don't know," Kal answered. "I only know of three."
"We'll hurry the attack, then, before they're set. Can you hold out, Kal?"
"I don't know," Kal said.
The attack. The meaning of it suddenly rang in Parr's ears. Until a second ago, he had seen his hate as personal, and now he realized that the Empire was ready to capture a planet and then to destroy a System. And he saw the vast evil of the Empire hurtling toward Oholo civilization. He gnashed his teeth.
Lauri's hand jerked on Parr's elbow. "The one you call Kal is dead."
"I'm glad," Parr was grim. He remembered the savage eyes which the Earth disguise could not conceal. "I'm glad."
"Kal, Kal," the Advanceship called into emptiness. "Kal! Come in, advanceman Kal!"
Parr flipped off the comset.
She lowered the thought blanket completely. "Relax. Try to relax."
"Why did you do it?" he said. "Why didn't you let them kill me?"
"I don't know," she said slowly. "You saved my life. I couldn't let them kill you. I saw how you felt, how you suddenly changed. How you'd become a new person all at once. I couldn't pass judgment on you after that. I hated you and then I didn't hate you anymore. It doesn't matter. It's too late to matter. I ... I...."
Her mind was warm against his.
"They're going back to join the others in the desert now," she said. "They're going to get ready to fight the attack."
"Lauri," Parr said. "Lauri, I've got to do something!"
CHAPTER X
(New York had broken windows now, and the streets were glass littered. An occasional white face peered out suspiciously from above a ground floor. But the heart beat of subways was stilled. The cry had been: "You'llstarvein the City!" and there had been an hysterical exodus, slow at first and then faster and faster and faster. The moon marched her train of shadows in the cavern streets.)
In Denver, the moon rode the mountains, calm, misted, serene.
"Parr," he spoke into the comset, and he felt Lauri's hand tighten on his elbow.
He glanced nervously at the sky. He was afraid to see the planet shield blossom as it might any minute to signify the attack had begun. But he feared even worse the absence of it.
"Parr?" the Advanceship spat back.
"The Oholos have a defense system around their own planets.It won't do you any good to capture this one!You won't be able to get nearer!"
"You are guilty of treason, Parr!"
"You can't get at their inner system! They have a defense ring that can blast your Fleet out of space."
"Lies!"