XI
The Stretts' fuel-supply line had been cut long since. Many Strettcargo-carriers had been destroyed. The enemy would of course have a veryheavy reserve of fuel on hand. But there was no way of knowing how largeit was, how many warships it could supply, or how long it would last.
Two facts were, however, unquestionable. First, the Stretts werebuilding a fleet that in their minds would be invincible. Second, theywould attack Ardane as soon as that fleet could be made ready. Theunanswerable question was: how long would that take?
"So we want to get every ship we have. How many? Five thousand? Ten?Fifteen? We want them converted to maximum possible power as soon as wepossibly can," Sawtelle said. "And I want to get out there with my boysto handle things."
"You aren't going to. Neither you nor your boys are expendable.Particularly you." Jaw hard-set, Hilton studied the situation forminutes. "No. What we'll do is take your Oman, Kedy. We'll re-set theGuide to drive into him everything you and the military Masters everknew about arms, armament, strategy, tactics and so on. And we'll addeverything I know of coordination, synthesis, and perception. That oughtto make him at least a junior-grade military genius."
"You can play _that_ in spades. I wish you could do it to me."
"I can--if you'll take the full Oman transformation. Nothing else canstand the punishment."
"I know. No, I don't want to be a genius that badly."
"Check. And we'll take the resultant Kedy and make nine duplicates ofhim. Each one will learn from and profit by the mistakes made bypreceding numbers and will assume command the instant his precedingnumber is killed."
"Oh, you expect, then...?"
"Expect? No. I know it damn well, and so do you. That's why we Ardanswill all stay aground. Why the Kedys' first job will be to make theheavy stuff in and around Ardane as heavy as it can be made. Why it'llall be on twenty-four-hour alert. Then they can put as many thousands ofOmans as you please to work at modernizing all the Oman ships you wantand doing anything else you say. Check?"
Sawtelle thought for a couple of minutes. "A few details, is all. Butthat can be ironed out as we go along."
Both men worked then, almost unremittingly for six solid days; at theend of which time both drew tremendous sighs of relief. They had doneeverything possible for them to do. The defense of Ardvor was nowrolling at fullest speed toward its gigantic objective.
Then captain and director, in two Oman ships with fifty men and athousand Omans, leaped the world-girdling ocean to the mining operationof the Stretts. There they found business strictly as usual. Thestrippers still stripped; the mining mechs still roared and snarledtheir inchwise ways along their geometrically perfect terraces; thelittle carriers still skittered busily between the various miners andthe storage silos. The fact that there was enough concentrate on hand tolast a world for a hundred years made no difference at all to theseautomatics; a crew of erector-mechs was building new silos as fast asexisting ones were being filled.
Since the men now understood everything that was going on, it was asimple matter for them to stop the whole Strett operation in itstracks. Then every man and every Oman leaped to his assigned job. Threedays later, all the mechs went back to work. Now, however, they wereworking for the Ardans.
The miners, instead of concentrate, now emitted vastly larger streams ofNavy-Standard pelleted uranexite. The carriers, instead of one-galloncans, carried five-ton drums. The silos were immensely larger--thirtyfeet in diameter and towering two hundred feet into the air. The siloswere not, however, being used as yet. One of the two Oman ships had beenconverted into a fuel-tanker and its yawning holds were being filledfirst.
The _Orion_ went back to Ardane and an eight-day wait began. For thefirst time in over seven months Hilton found time actually to loaf; andhe and Temple, lolling on the beach or hiking in the mountains, enjoyedthemselves and each other to the full.
All too soon, however, the heavily laden tanker appeared in the sky overArdane. The _Orion_ joined it; and the two ships slipped into sub-spacefor Earth.
* * * * *
Three days out, Hilton used his sense of perception to release thethought-controlled blocks that had been holding all the controls of the_Perseus_ in neutral. He informed her officers--by releasing apublic-address tape--that they were now free to return to Terra.
Three days later, one day short of Sol, Sawtelle got Five-Jet AdmiralGordon's office on the sub-space radio. An officious underling tried toblock him, of course.
"Shut up, Perkins, and listen," Sawtelle said, bruskly. "Tell Gordon I'mbringing in one hundred twenty thousand two hundred forty-five metrictons of pelleted uranexite. And if he isn't on this beam in sixtyseconds he'll never get a gram of it."
The admiral, outraged almost to the point of apoplexy, came in."Sawtelle, report yourself for court-martial at ..."
"Keep still, Gordon," the captain snapped. In sheer astonishment oldFive-Jets obeyed. "I am no longer Terran Navy; no longer subject to yourorders. As a matter of cold fact, I am no longer human. For reasonswhich I will explain later to the full Advisory Board, some of thepersonnel of Project Theta Orionis underwent transformation into a formof life able to live in an environment of radioactivity so intense as tokill any human being in ten seconds. Under certain conditions we willsupply, free of charge, FOB Terra or Luna, all the uranexite the SolarSystem can use. The conditions are these," and he gave them. "Do youaccept these conditions or not?"
"I ... I would vote to accept them, Captain. But that weight! Onehundred twenty thousand _metric tons_--incredible! Are you _sure_ ofthat figure?"
"Definitely. And that is minimum. The error is plus, not minus."
"This crippling power-shortage would really be over?" For the first timesince Sawtelle had known him, Gordon showed that he was not quite solidNavy brass.
"It's over. Definitely. For good."
"I'd not only agree; I'd raise you a monument. While I can't speak forthe Board, I'm sure they'll agree."
"So am I. In any event, your cooperation is all that's required for thisfirst load." The chips had vanished from Sawtelle's shoulders. "Where doyou want it, Admiral? Aristarchus or White Sands?"
"White Sands, please. While there may be some delay in releasing it toindustry ..."
"While they figure out how much they can tax it?" Sawtelle asked,sardonically.
"Well, if they don't tax it it'll be the first thing in history thatisn't. Have you any objections to releasing all this to the press?"
"None at all. The harder they hit it and the wider they spread it, thebetter. Will you have this beam switched to Astrogation, please?"
"Of course. And thanks, Captain. I'll see you at White Sands."
Then, as the now positively glowing Gordon faded away, Sawtelle turnedto his own staff. "Fenway--Snowden--take over. Better double-checkmicro-timing with Astro. Put us into a twenty-four-hour orbit over WhiteSands and hold us there. We won't go down. Let the load down on remote,wherever they want it."
* * * * *
The arrival of the Ardvorian superdreadnought _Orion_ and the _UC-1_(Uranexite Carrier Number One) was one of the most sensational eventsold Earth had ever known. Air and space craft went clear out toEmergence Volume Ninety to meet them. By the time the _UC-1_ was comingin on its remote-controlled landing spiral the press of small ships wasso great that all the police forces available were in a lather trying tocontrol it.
This was exactly what Hilton had wanted. It made possible the completelyunobserved launching of several dozen small craft from the _Orion_herself.
One of these made a very high and very fast flight to Chicago. With alldue formality and under the aegis of a perfectly authentic RegistryNumber it landed on O'Hare Field. Eleven deeply tanned young menemerged from it and made their way to a taxi stand, where each engaged aseparate vehicle.
Sam Bryant stepped into his cab, gave the driver a number on OakwoodAvenue in Des Plaines, and settled back to scan. He w
as lucky. He wouldhave gone anywhere she was, of course, but the way things were, he couldgive her a little warning to soften the shock. She had taken the babyout for an airing down River Road, and was on her way back. By havingthe taxi kill ten minutes or so he could arrive just after she did.Wherefore he stopped the cab at a public communications booth and dialedhis home.
"Mrs. Bryant is not at home, but she will return at fifteen thirty," theinstrument said, crisply. "Would you care to record a message for her?"
He punched the RECORD button. "This is Sam, Dolly baby. I'm right behindyou. Turn around, why don't you, and tell your ever-lovin' star-hoppin'husband hello?"
The taxi pulled up at the curb just as Doris closed the front door; andSam, after handing the driver a five-dollar bill, ran up the walk.
He waited just outside the door, key in hand, while she lowered thestroller handle, took off her hat and by long-established habit reachedout to flip the communicator's switch. At the first word, however, shestiffened rigidly--froze solid.
Smiling, he opened the door, walked in, and closed it behind him.Nothing short of a shotgun blast could have taken Doris Bryant'sattention from that recorder then.
"That simply is not so," she told the instrument firmly, with both eyesresolutely shut. "They made him stay on the _Perseus_. He won't be infor at least three days. This is some cretin's idea of a joke."
"Not this time, Dolly honey. It's really me."
Her eyes popped open as she whirled. "SAM!" she shrieked, and hurledherself at him with all the pent-up ardor and longing of two hundredthirty-four meticulously counted, husbandless, loveless days.
After an unknown length of time Sam tipped her face up by the chin,nodded at the stroller, and said, "How about introducing me to thelittle stranger?"
"_What_ a mother I turned out to be! That was the first thing I wasgoing to rave about, the very first thing I saw you! Samuel Jay theFourth, seventy-six days old today." And so on.
Eventually, however, the proud young mother watched the slightlyapprehensive young father carry their first-born upstairs; wheretogether, they put him--still sound asleep--to bed in his crib. Thenagain they were in each other's arms.
* * * * *
Some time later, she twisted around in the circle of his arm and triedto dig her fingers into the muscles of his back. She then attacked hisbiceps and, leaning backward, eyed him intently.
"You're you, I know, but you're different. No athlete or any laborercould ever possibly get the muscles you have all over. To say nothing ofa space officer on duty. And I know it isn't any kind of a disease.You've been acting all the time as though I were fragile, made out ofglass or something--as though you were afraid of breaking me in two.So--what is it, sweetheart?"
"I've been trying to figure out an easy way of telling you, but thereisn't any. I am different. I'm a hundred times as strong as any man everwas. Look." He upended a chair, took one heavy hardwood leg betweenfinger and thumb and made what looked like a gentle effort to bend it.The leg broke with a pistol-sharp report and Doris leaped backward insurprise. "So you're right. I _am_ afraid, not only of breaking you intwo, but killing you. And if I break any of your ribs or arms or legsI'll never forgive myself. So if I let myself go for a second--I don'tthink I will, but I might--don't wait until you're really hurt to startscreaming. Promise?"
"I promise." Her eyes went wide. "But _tell_ me!"
He told her. She was in turn surprised, amazed, apprehensive, frightenedand finally eager; and she became more and more eager right up to theend.
"You mean that we ... that I'll stay just as I am--for thousands of_years_?"
"Just as you are. Or different, if you like. If you really mean any ofthis yelling you've been doing about being too big in the hips--I thinkyou're exactly right, myself--you can rebuild yourself any way youplease. Or change your shape every hour on the hour. But you haven'taccepted my invitation yet."
"Don't be silly." She went into his arms again and nibbled on his leftear. "I'd go anywhere with you, of course, any time, but _this_--butyou're positively _sure_ Sammy Small will be all right?"
"Positively sure."
"Okay, I'll call mother...." Her face fell. "I _can't_ tell her thatwe'll never see them again and that we'll live ..."
"You don't need to. She and Pop--Fern and Sally, too, and theirboy-friends--are on the list. Not this time, but in a month or so,probably."
Doris brightened like a sunburst. "And your folks, too, of course?" sheasked.
"Yes, all the close ones."
"Marvelous! How soon are we leaving?"
* * * * *
At six o'clock next morning, two hundred thirty-five days after leavingEarth, Hilton and Sawtelle set out to make the Ardans' official callupon Terra's Advisory Board. Both were wearing prodigiously heavy leadarmor, the inside of which was furiously radioactive. They did not needit, of course. But it would make all Ardans monstrous in Terran eyes andwould conceal the fact that any other Ardans were landing.
Their gig was met at the spaceport; not by a limousine, but by afive-ton truck, into which they were loaded one at a time by a hydrauliclift. Cameras clicked, reporters scurried, and tri-di scanners whirred.One of those scanners, both men knew, was reporting directly and only tothe Advisory Board--which, of course, never took anything either forgranted or at its face value.
Their first stop was at a truck-scale, where each visitor was weighed.Hilton tipped the beam at four thousand six hundred fifteen pounds;Sawtelle, a smaller man, weighed in at four thousand one hundred ninety.Thence to the Radiation Laboratory, where it was ascertained andreported that the armor did not leak--which was reasonable enough,since each was lined with Masters' plastics.
Then into lead-lined testing cells, where each opened his face-platebriefly to a sensing element. Whereupon the indicating needles of twometers in the main laboratory went enthusiastically through the fullrange of red and held unwaveringly against their stops.
Both Ardans felt the wave of shocked, astonished, almost unbelievingconsternation that swept through the observing scientists and, inslightly lesser measure (because they knew less about radiation) throughthe Advisory Board itself in a big room halfway across town. And fromthe Radiation Laboratory they were taken, via truck and freightelevator, to the Office of the Commandant, where the Board was sitting.
The story, which had been sent in to the Board the day before on ascrambled beam, was one upon which the Ardans had labored for days. Manyfacts could be withheld. However, every man aboard the _Perseus_ wouldagree on some things. Indeed, the Earthship's communications officershad undoubtedly radioed in already about longevity and perfect healthand Oman service and many other matters. Hence all such things wouldhave to be admitted and countered.
Thus the report, while it was air-tight, perfectly logical, perfectlyconsistent, and apparently complete, did not please the Board at all. Itwasn't intended to.
* * * * *
"We cannot and do not approve of such unwarranted favoritism," theChairman of the Board said. "Longevity has always been man's prime goal.Every human being has the inalienable right to ..."
"Flapdoodle!" Hilton snorted. "This is not being broadcast and this roomis proofed, so please climb down off your soapbox. You don't need totalk like a politician here. Didn't you read paragraph 12-A-2, one ofthe many marked 'Top Secret'?"
"Of course. But we do not understand how purely mental qualities canpossibly have any effect upon purely physical transformations. Thus itdoes not seem reasonable that any except rigorously screened personnelwould die in the process. That is, of course, unless you contemplatedeliberate, cold-blooded murder."
That stopped Hilton in his tracks, for it was too close for comfort tothe truth. But it did not hold the captain for an instant. He was usedto death, in many of its grisliest forms.
"There are a lot of things no Terran ever will understand," Sawtellereplied instantly. "Reasonable, or
not, that's exactly what willhappen. And, reasonable or not, it'll be suicide, not murder. Thereisn't a thing that either Hilton or I can do about it."
Hilton broke the ensuing silence. "You can say with equal truth thatevery human being has the _right_ to run a four-minute mile or tocompose a great symphony. It isn't a matter of right at all, but ofability. In this case the mental qualities are even more necessary thanthe physical. You as a Board did a very fine job of selecting the BuScipersonnel for Project Theta Orionis. Almost eighty per cent of themproved able to withstand the Ardan conversion. On the other hand, only avery small percentage of the Navy personnel did so."
"Your report said that the remaining personnel of the Project were notinformed as to the death aspect of the transformation," Admiral Gordonsaid. "Why not?"
"That should be self-explanatory," Hilton said, flatly. "They are stillhuman and still Terrans. We did not and will not encroach upon eitherthe duties or the privileges of Terra's Advisory Board. What you tellall Terrans, and how much, and how, must be decided by yourselves. Thisalso applies, of course, to the other 'Top Secret' paragraphs of thereport, none of which are known to any Terran outside the Board."
"But you haven't said anything about the method of selection," anotherAdvisor complained. "Why, that will take all the psychologists of theworld, working full time; continuously."
"We said we would do the selecting. We meant just that," Hilton said,coldly. "No one except the very few selectees will know anything aboutit. Even if it were an unmixed blessing--which it very definitely is_not_--do you want all humanity thrown into such an uproar as that wouldcause? Or the quite possible racial inferiority complex it might set up?To say nothing of the question of how much of Terra's best blood do youwant to drain off, irreversibly and permanently? No. What we suggest isthat you paint the picture so black, using Sawtelle and me and what allhumanity has just seen as horrible examples, that nobody would take itas a gift. Make them shun it like the plague. Hell, I don't have to tellyou what your propaganda machines can do."
* * * * *
The Chairman of the Board again mounted his invisible rostrum. "Do youmean to intimate that we are to falsify the record?" he declaimed. "Totry to make liars out of hundreds of eyewitnesses? You ask us todistort the truth, to connive at ..."
"We aren't asking you to do _anything_!" Hilton snapped. "We don't givea damn what you do. Just study that record, with all that it implies.Read between the lines. As for those on the _Perseus_, no two of themwill tell the same story and not one of them has even the remotest ideaof what the real story is. I, personally, not only did not want tobecome a monster, but would have given everything I had to stay human.My wife felt the same way. Neither of us would have converted if there'dbeen any other way in God's universe of getting the uranexite and doingsome other things that simply _must_ be done."
"What other things?" Gordon demanded.
"You'll never know," Hilton answered, quietly. "Things no Terran everwill know. We hope. Things that would drive any Terran stark mad. Someof them are hinted at--as much as we dared--between the lines of thereport."
The report had not mentioned the Stretts. Nor were they to be mentionednow. If the Ardans could stop them, no Terran need ever know anythingabout them.
If not, no Terran should know anything about them except what he wouldlearn for himself just before the end. For Terra would never be able todo anything to defend herself against the Stretts.
"Nothing whatever can drive _me_ mad," Gordon declared, "and I want toknow all about it--right now!"
"You can do one of two things, Gordon," Sawtelle said in disgust. Hissneer was plainly visible through the six-ply, plastic-backed lead glassof his face-plate. "Either shut up or accept my personal invitation tocome to Ardvor and try to go through the wringer. That's an invitationto your own funeral." Five-Jet Admiral Gordon, torn inwardly to ribbons,made no reply.
"I repeat," Hilton went on, "we are not asking you to do anythingwhatever. We are offering to give you; free of charge but under certainconditions, all the power your humanity can possibly use. We set nolimitation whatever as to quantity and with no foreseeable limit as totime. The only point at issue is whether or not you accept theconditions. If you do not accept them we'll leave now--and the offerwill not be repeated."
"And you would, I presume, take the _UC-1_ back with you?"
"Of course not, sir. Terra needs power too badly. You are perfectlywelcome to that one load of uranexite, no matter what is decided here."
"That's one way of putting it," Gordon sneered. "But the truth is thatyou know damned well I'll blow both of your ships out of space if you somuch as ..."
"Oh, chip-chop the jaw-flapping, Gordon!" Hilton snapped. Then, as theadmiral began to bellow orders into his microphone, he went on: "Youwant it the hard way, eh? Watch what happens, all of you!"
* * * * *
The _UC-1_ shot vertically into the air. Through its shallow dense layerand into and through the stratosphere. Earth's fleet, already on fullalert and poised to strike, rushed to the attack. But the carrier hadreached the _Orion_ and both Ardvorian ships had been waiting,motionless, for a good half minute before the Terran warships arrivedand began to blast with everything they had.
"Flashlights and firecrackers," Sawtelle said, calmly. "You aren't evenwarming up our screens. As soon as you quit making a damned fool ofyourself by wasting energy that way, we'll set the _UC-1_ back downwhere she was and get on with our business here."
"You will order a cease-fire at once, Admiral," the chairman said, "orthe rest of us will, as of now, remove you from the Board." Gordongritted his teeth in rage, but gave the order.
"If he hasn't had enough yet to convince him," Hilton suggested, "hemight send up a drone. We don't want to kill anybody, you know. One withthe heaviest screening he's got--just to see what happens to it."
"He's had enough. The rest of us have had more than enough. Thatexhibition was not only uncalled-for and disgusting--it was outrageous!"
The meeting settled down, then, from argument to constructivediscussion, and many topics were gone over. Certain matters were,however, so self-evident that they were not even mentioned.
Thus, it was a self-evident fact that no Terran could ever visit Ardvor;for the instrument-readings agreed with the report's statements as tothe violence of the Ardvorian environment, and no Terran could possiblywalk around in two tons of lead. Conversely, it was self-apparent to theTerrans that no Ardan could ever visit Earth without being recognizedinstantly for what he was. Wearing such armor made its necessity starklyplain. No one from the _Perseus_ could say that any Ardan, after havinglived on the furiously radiant surface of Ardvor, would not be asfuriously radioactive as the laboratory's calibrated instruments hadshown Hilton and Sawtelle actually to be.
Wherefore the conference went on, quietly and cooperatively, to itsplanned end.
One minute after the Terran battleship _Perseus_ emerged into normalspace, the _Orion_ went into sub-space for her long trip back to Ardvor.
* * * * *
The last two days of that seven-day trip were the longest-seeming thateither Hilton or Sawtelle had ever known. The sub-space radio was oncontinuously and Kedy-One reported to Sawtelle every five minutes. Eventhough Hilton knew that the Oman commander-in-chief was exactly as goodat perceiving as he himself was, he found himself scanning thethoroughly screened Strett world forty or fifty times an hour.
However, in spite of worry and apprehension, time wore eventlessly on.The _Orion_ emerged, went to Ardvor and landed on Ardane Field.
Hilton, after greeting properly and reporting to his wife, went to hisoffice. There he found that Sandra had everything well in hand exceptfor a few tapes that only he could handle. Sawtelle and his officerswent to the new Command Central, where everything was rolling smoothlyand very much faster than Sawtelle had dared hope.
The Terran immigrants had to live in the
_Orion_, of course, untilconversion into Ardans. Almost equally of course--since the Bryantinfant was the only young baby in the lot--Doris and her Sammy Smallwere, by popular acclaim, in the first batch to be converted. For littleSammy had taken the entire feminine contingent by storm. No Oman femalehad a chance to act as nurse as long as any of the girls were around.Which was practically all the time. Especially the platinum-blondetwins; for several months, now, Bernadine Braden and Hermione Felger.
"And you said they were so hard-boiled," Doris said accusingly to Sam,nodding at the twins. On hands and knees on the floor, head to head withSammy Small between them, they were growling deep-throated at each otherand nuzzling at the baby, who was having the time of his young life."You couldn't have been any wronger, my sweet, if you'd had the wholeOctagon helping you go astray. They're just as nice as they can be, bothof them."
Sam shrugged and grinned. His wife strode purposefully across the roomto the playful pair and lifted their pretended prey out from betweenthem.
"Quit it, you two," she directed, swinging the baby up and depositinghim a-straddle her left hip. "You're just simply spoiling him rotten."
"You think so, Dolly? Uh-uh, far be it from such." Bernadine camelithely to her feet. She glanced at her own taut, trim abdomen; uponwhich a micrometrically-precise topographical mapping job might haverevealed an otherwise imperceptible bulge. "Just you wait until Juniorarrives and I'll show you how to _really_ spoil a baby. Besides, what'sthe hurry?"
"He needs his supper. Vitamins and minerals and hard radiations andthings, and then he's going to bed. I don't approve of this no-sleepbusiness. So run along, both of you, until tomorrow."