1
The speaker inside the house spoke softly.
"Guests for Kim Rendell, asking permission to land."
Kim stared up at the unfamiliar stars of the Second Galaxy, and picked out a tiny winking light with his eyes. He moved to a speaker-disk.
"Land and be welcomed." To Dona he added, "It's a flier. I've been expecting something like this. We need fuel for theStarshineif we're not to be stuck on this one planet forever. My guess is that somebody has come through the matter-transmitter from Ades to argue about it."
He moved to the edge of the terrace to watch the landing. Dona came and stood beside him, her hand twisting into his. The night was very dark, and the two small moons of Terranova cast no more than enough light to outline nearby objects. The house behind Kim and Dona was low and sprawling and, on its polished outer surface, unnamed Second Galaxy constellations glinted faintly.
The flier came down, black and seemingly ungainly, with spinning rotors that guided and controlled its descent, rather than sustaining it against the planet's gravity. The extraordinarily flexible vegetation of Terranova bent away from the hovering object. It landed and the rotors ceased to spin. Figures got out.
"I'm here," said Kim Rendell into the darkness.
Two men came across the matted lawn to the terrace. One was the colony organizer for Terranova and the other was the definitely rough-and-ready mayor of Steadheim, a small settlement on Ades back in the First Galaxy.
"I am honored," said Kim in the stock phrase of greeting.
The two figures came heavily up on the terrace. Dona went indoors and came back with refreshments, according to the custom of Ades and Terranova. The visitors accepted the glasses, in which ice tinkled musically.
"You seem depressed," said Kim politely, another stock phrase. It was a way of getting immediately to business.
"There's trouble," growled the Mayor of Steadheim. "Bad trouble. It couldn't be worse. It looks like Ades is going to be wiped out. For lack of space-ships and fuel."
"Lack of space-ships and fuel?" protested Kim. "But you're making them!"
"We thought we were," growled the Mayor. "We've stopped. We're stuck. We're finished—and the ships aren't. The same with the fuel. There's not a drop for you and things look bad! But we can't make ships, and we couldn't make fuel for them if we could! That's why we've come to you.We've got to have those ships!"
"But why not?" demanded Kim. "What's preventing it? You've got the record-reels from theStarshine! They tell you everything, from the first steps in making a ship to the last least item of its outfitting! You know how to make fuel!"
"Space!" exploded the Mayor of Steadheim. "Of course we know how! We know all about it! There are fifty useless hulks in a neat row outside my city—every one unfinished. We're short of metal on Ades and we had to melt down tools to make them, but we did—as far as we could go. Now we're stuck and we're apt to be wiped out because of it!"
The Mayor of Steadheim wore a bearskin cap and his costume was appropriate to that part of Ades in which his municipality lay. He was dressed for a sub-arctic climate, not for the balmy warmth of Terranova, where Kim Rendell had made his homestead. He sweated as he gulped at his drink.
"Tell me the trouble," said Kim. "Maybe—"
"Hafnium!" barked the mayor. "There's no hafnium on Ades! The ships are done, all but the fuel-catalyzers. The fuel is ready—all but the first catalyzation that prepares it to be put in a ship's tanks. We have to have hafnium to make catalyzers for the ships. We have to have hafnium to make the fuel!
"We haven't got it! There's not an atom of it on the planet! We're so short of heavy elements, anyhow, that we make hammers out of magnesium alloy and put stones in 'em to give them weight so they'll strike a real blow! We haven't got an atom of hafnium and we can't make ships or run them either without it!"
Kim blinked at the Colony Organizer for Terranova.
"Here—"
"No hafnium here either," said the Colony Organizer gloomily. "We analyzed a huge sample of ocean salts. If there were any on the planet there'd be a trace in the ocean. Naturally! So what do we do?"
Kim spoke unhappily.
"I wouldn't know. I'm a matter-transmitter technician. I can do things with power and, of course, I understand theStarshine'sengines. But there's no record of the early, primitive types that went before them—types that might work on other fuel. Maybe in some library on one of the older planets—But at that, the fuel theStarshineused was so perfect that it would be recorded thousands of years back."
"Take a year to find it," said the Mayor of Steadheim bitterly. "If we could search! And it might be no good then! We haven't got a year. Probably we haven't a month!"
"We're beaten," mourned the Colony Organizer. "All we can do is get as many through the Transmitter from Ades as possible and go on half rations. But we'll starve."
"We'renotbeaten!" roared the Mayor of Steadheim. "We'll get hafnium and have a fighting fleet and fuel to power it! There's plenty of the blasted stuff somewhere in the Galaxy! Kim Rendell, if I find out where it is, will you go get it?"
"TheStarshine," said Kim grimly, "barely made it to port here. There's less than six hours' fuel left."
"And who'd sell us hafnium?" demanded the Colony Organizer bitterly. "We're the men of Ades—the rebels, the outlaws! We were sent to Ades to keep us from contaminating the sheep who live under governments with disciplinary circuits and think they're men! We'd be killed on sight for breaking our exile on any planet in the First Galaxy! Who'd sell us hafnium?"
"Who spoke of buying?" roared the mayor. "I was sent to Ades for murder! I'm not above killing again for the things I believe in! I've a wife on Ades, where there are ten men for every woman. I've four tall sons! D'you think I won't kill for them?"
"You speak of piracy," said the Colony Organizer, distastefully.
"Piracy! Murder! What's the difference? When my sons are in danger—"
"What's this danger?" Kim said sharply. "It's bad enough to be grounded, as we seem to be. But you said just now—"
"Sinab Two!" snorted the Mayor of Steadheim. "That's the danger! We know! When a man becomes a criminal anywhere he's sent to us. In the First Galaxy a man with brains usually becomes a criminal. A free man always does! So we've known for a long while there were empires in the making. You heard that, Kim Rendell!"
"Yes, I've heard that," agreed Kim.
So he had, but only vaguely. His own home planet, Alphin Three, was ostensibly a technarchy, ruled by men chosen for their aptitude for public affairs by psychological tests and given power after long training.
Actually it was a tyranny, ruled by members of the Prime Council. Other planets were despotisms or oligarchies and many were kingdoms, these days. Every possible form of government was represented in the three hundred million inhabited planets of the First Galaxy.
But every planet was independent and in all—by virtue of the disciplinary circuit—the government was absolute and hence tyrannical. Empires, however, were something new. On Ades, Kim barely heard that three were in process of formation.
"One's the Empire of Greater Sinab," snorted the mayor, "and we've just heard how it grows!"
"Surprise attacks, no doubt," said Kim, "through matter-transmitters."
"We'd not worry if that were all!" snapped the mayor. "It's vastly worse! You know the old fighting-beams?"
"I know them!" said Kim grimly.