years, or an enemy one that had been captured, oreven a piece of ground that had been paid for in blasted hulks andsmashed bodies.
This gain was by treason.
Naturally then, the men felt contempt for the operation and theircontempt was manifested in sloppiness. The commanding officers wouldordinarily have become raging martinets at such lax discipline andslovenliness, but the taint and contempt of treasonous gain was uponthem also.
This contempt was displayed openly whenever the Traitor came to thebase. Weak egos must be flattered by derision of others. They would havekilled him as a matter of course, if he hadn't been clever enough torefuse to relinquish the secret codes which allowed the friendly shipsto pass. Torture was obsolete, for hypnosis allowed a victim to diebefore he could reveal secret information.
He came every week to get free supplies and have conferences with theIntelligence men. The Traitor would walk the freshly-laid sidewalkboldly, his head up, his eyes flashing about to take in every newbuilding.
The soldiers hazed him, spitting at him, bumping into him, glaring andswearing at him; but he always reciprocated with such a withering lookof contempt that they soon grew tired of the sport.
The worst day for the Traitor, alias Aron Myers, was when he went intothe Soldier's Club to quench his thirst of a hot day. Since it was aweek-end and there was nowhere to go on what few week-end passes weregiven, the Club was packed.
In the dimmed-light atmosphere, the black uniforms made the place seemfilled with vagrant and ominous shadows with white faces. The noise wasalmost unbearable and Aron had a mind to leave.
He was confronted by a group of these shadows. They were all the same,indistinguishable in their identical uniforms, crew-cuts and young,arrogant faces.
"Hello Mr. Myers," one of them said. "Won't you join us in a drink?"
When he started to demur, they interrupted, "But we insist, Mr. Myers."One took him by an arm and led him to a table.
"After all," they said as the drinks came up, "We owe you at least adrink for giving us such a nice new base and everything, now don't we."It was sarcasm, and hammy sarcasm at that, Aron thought.
He recognized the situation as another case of hazing, but this time bya group of soldiers made even more obnoxious and bellicose by the liquorin their guts.
"You don't owe me anything," Aron said, "I gave it to you for my ownreasons and not for money." Sure enough, they even came out with thecorny laughter.
He let them play out their little satire without protest. Theirgrandiose courtesy towards him, the toasts drunk in his honor. That is,until one of them, more drunk than the others, said, "Mr. Myers, I hopeyou don't mind my telling you, but you are a--." The epithet was a newslang word but its vileness stemmed from prehistoric days.
Aron replied with blazing eyes. "I can't insult you back and you knowit. I don't want to be killed that badly. All I can say is:
"Who are you to judge me? You are blind little men in a cage trying tojudge someone on the outside.
"Your hearts and minds have been forged in the crucible of duty andbattle. You live for your uniforms and the distinction those uniformsbring you. You live to fight and die, to spend your spare time in dank,noisy holes like this. Drinking and lying to each other about youradventures and love-life.
"Then you try to judge galactic politics and the decisions of a mancaught up in the rip tides of these politics, when all you know is yourown vicious lives. You are traitors as much as any man, for you havesacrificed your normal lives to dedicate yourself to the violentdead-end of a soldier of space.
"Yes, you know what I am talking about, the Fermi radiations! The hardradiations of space that make every person who stays in space any lengthof time a sure candidate for an early grave.
"You're young now, so terribly young, only twenty or so years old in apossible life-span of a hundred years.
"You are traitors to yourselves by rejecting this life-span for a fewbrief years of glory as a soldier, then a slow decay for ten years tillyou are in a grave at thirty or forty.
"Your motto ought to be, 'live fast, fight hard, die young and have aradiation-rotted corpse'.
"And yet you condemn a man because he tries to seek a few comforts froman uncomfortable, implacable universe."
They didn't get it. They never get it, he thought ruefully. Theycontinued in their cat and mouse game until they realized the mouserefused to be terrified, then they let him go.
During the next few weeks, someone started the rumor that the Traitorwas actually a native of the People's Republic who had been trained andthen planted in the United Empire's TA to do this job for Intelligence.The soldiers quickly believed it and almost came to respect the Traitor.
* * * * *
From the way that the Intelligence officers freely talked aboutclassified information with him in his weekly visits, Aron was awarethat they would probably kill him once his usefulness was over. He wasdevising ways, though, to get around that at the last minute.
From this knowledge that had been blatantly tossed in front of him, heknew how strategic Kligor was in the stalemated war between the empires.
The People's Republic now had a fair-sized striking force based there,so that when an all-out offensive, which was scheduled in a few weeks,started, this hidden force could attack United Republic's squadrons fromthe rear and be doubly effective because of surprise.
So the weeks trotted by, the soldiers' camp expanding daily as theTraitor let the supply ships through the barrier. There are moods in warjust as in people. This was a crucial point, the People's Republic hadgained a slight edge by its gain on Kligor. So the usual pitch ofanticipation was infused with the higher excitement of a sure victory.
The days were slipping furtively away as the Kligor garrison gathereditself together, crouched and got ready to spring into blind, violentaction on the big day.
The laughter of the soldiers was tinged with nervous hysteria, but whenthey thought of that grim array of defense satellites, with itsall-seeing eyes, its electronic brain, its steel guts and large parcelof hell in its fist, all this United Empire strength protecting them,their laughter grew louder and more sincere.
* * * * *
Aron thanked providence that Kligor didn't have any moons. Thisparticular night called for every ebony patch of darkness that he couldfind.
He was on a nocturnal visit to the base, not using his flier. He knewthere were guards posted near his station that would notify the campwhen this craft was used. Slipping out the night before and avoiding theguards, Aron had begun the twenty mile hike to the base.
As he neared the base his precautions increased, his speed decreasingproportionately. Avoiding the outer ring of guards was easy, as theywere spaced far apart. Moving in undetected, through the tighter nets ofguards around the camp, required the skill and patience of a feline.
That this base should have foot soldiers patrolling the ground around itseemed absurd on the face of it, especially to the men who had to do it.The planet was uninhabited and their only worry was from the skies abovewhere the TA satellites defended them.
The Intelligence officers knew better. They knew how easily one mancould slip through these defences. One man at a time, for several weeks,and a sizable ground force could be built up in some remote spot onKligor. It was a long shot probability, but it was their duty to protectagainst such a probability destroying what they had achieved.
There was also a traitor, one of those fluctuating spineless things,loose on the planet--a clever man who couldn't be trusted by anyone.
This lack of trust was justified as Aron crawled and inched his waythrough the last circle of sentries. His whole body was a detectingdevice, listening for footsteps, watching for dim figures in the dark,even his nose was waiting to detect the odor of a cigarette.
According to the paper he had been lucky enough to read in theIntelligence offices when they weren't looking, he knew the Captain ofthe guards should be making an
inspection about then. The seconds hungsuspended, reluctant to pass, and Aron waited.
The Captain finally showed up, walking briskly, a smile on his face.This smile was rudely erased and all future occasions for smiles removedby a swiftly moving figure that plunged a knife into his throat beforehis mind could translate the shock into a cry of alarm.
More movement on the path and a new Captain of the guards emerged,walking just as briskly, but in a new direction.
The People's Republic's base occupied the narrow end of the valley, witha canyon entrance serving as the apex of the triangle it covered. Nearthis apex were the buildings, the dozens of barracks and administrativebuildings, all dwarfed by the massive concrete warehouses set aroundthem against the hills. In these warehouses were the fuel, food andmunitions of the enemy.
Below these buildings were the ships, first the rows of the 27 warshipsand then the 40 or so cargo and troop