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Title: Battle for the Stars

Author: Edmond Hamilton

Release date: November 29, 2021 [eBook #66843]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BATTLE FOR THE STARS ***

                         BATTLE for the STARS

                          By ALEXANDER BLADE

                Kirk had never seen the distant planet
            called Earth, yet his squadron was now ordered
            there--to stem the outbreak of a galactic war!

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
                               June 1956
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


It was well called the Dragon's Throat, thought Kirk. Throat of fire,
of burning suns, a cosmic blind-alley into danger!

You made your decision. You threw a ship, a hundred men, your officers,
your friends, your own Commander's badge you threw them all down on the
gamble. But when the stakes were stars....

He said to himself, "The hell with it, we're committed."

He said aloud, "Radar?"

Joe Garstang, standing on the bridge beside him, answered without
turning. "Nothing has been monitored yet. Not _yet_."

Kirk's palms itched. If they were running into an ambush, if Orion
heavy cruisers were waiting for them, they'd soon know it. There could
be ships all around them. Radar wasn't too dependable, in the howling
vortices of force-field energy flung out around this jungle of stars.

Through the broad bridge-windows--the "windows" that were really
scanners cunningly translating faster-than-light probe rays into visual
images--there beat upon his face the light of a thousand suns.

It was Cluster N-356-44, in the Standard Atlas. It was also hellfire
made manifest, to starmen. It was a hive of swarming suns, pale green
and violet, white and yellow-gold and smoky red, blazing so fiercely
that the eye was robbed of perspective and these stars seemed to crowd
and jostle and rub each other. Up against the black backdrop of the
firmament they burned, pouring forth the torrents of their life-energy
to whirl in terrific cosmic maelstroms. The merchant ships that boldly
drove the great darks between ordinary star-worlds would recoil aghast
from the navigational perils here. Only a fool--or a cruiser--would go
in here.

There was a narrow cleft between cliffs of stars, with the flame-shot
glow of an immense nebula roofing it. The only possible way into the
heart of the cluster, this Dragon's Throat of starman legend. But
others had gone in this way. At least, so said the rumors, rumors
that had reached the squadron as far away as the Pleiades. Rumors too
factual, too alarming, to be ignored.

Rumors of cruisers from the squadrons of Orion Sector, that had gone
into this cluster. Rumors of a secret base, on a hidden world. The
ships of Orion Sector had no business here. Neither, for that matter,
did the ships of Kirk's own Lyra Sector. This cluster was no-man's
land, part of the buffer zones that were supposed to reduce friction
between the five great Sectors of the galaxy. Actually, these stellar
wildernesses were the scenes of constant, nameless little wars.

The five governors of the five great Sectors were, all of them,
ambitious men. Solleremos of Orion, Vorn of Cepheus, Gianea of Leo,
Strowe of Perseus, Ferdias of Lyra--they watched each other jealously.
Five great barons of the galaxy, paying only a lip-service allegiance
to the shadowy Central Council far away on a half-forgotten world
called Earth, in reality independent satraps of the stars, hungry for
space, hungry for power. Yes, even Ferdias, thought Kirk. Ferdias was
the man he served, respected, and even loved in a craggy sort of way.
But Ferdias, like the others, played a massive game of chess with
men and suns, moving his squadrons here and his undercover operatives
there, laboring ceaselessly to hold on to what he had and perhaps
enlarge his domain, just a little, a solar system here and a minor
cluster there....

And the game went on. Right now, Kirk thought he was probably heading
into a trap. But if Orion cruisers _were_ in here, he had to know it. A
hostile base here, if left to grow, could dominate all the star-lanes
from Capella to Arcturus. It was up to him as a squadron-commander, to
go in and find out.

Kirk looked at the looming, overtopping cliffs of stars that went up
to the glowing nebula above and down to the black pit of absolutely
nothing below.

He thought of Lyllin, waiting for him back at Vega. A starman had no
business with a wife.

He said again, "Radar?"

"Still nothing," said Garstang. His square face was no less grim than
Kirk's. He was captain of this flagship _Starsong_, and what happened
to her was important to him. "If there is a base here," he said, "we
should have come in with the whole squadron."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kirk shook his head. He had made his decision and he was not going to
start doubting it now, no matter how lonely and exposed he felt.

"That could be exactly what Solleremos wants. With the right kind of
ambush, a whole squadron could be clobbered in this mess. Then Lyra
would be wide open. No. One ship is enough to risk."

"Yes, sir," said Garstang.

"The hell with you, Joe," said Kirk. "Say what you're thinking."

"I am thinking that the rumor mentioned cruisers, plural, indefinite.
We'd better catch them while they're all asleep."

The _Starsong_ forged her way onward toward the two red suns at the end
of the Dragon's Throat. And Kirk thought that if he had made the wrong
decision, if the _Starsong_ never came back again, Ferdias would be
very angry. But that would not then make any difference to him.

Looking up at the flaring, tumbling waves of the nebula, like the
underside of a burning ocean, Kirk said to Garstang:

"Does it seem to you the pace is speeding up? I mean, this jockeying
for power between the Sectors has gone on a long time, ever since Earth
lost real authority. But it seems different lately, somehow. More
incidents, more feeling of something driving ahead toward a definite
goal, a plan and a pattern you can't quite see. You know what I mean?"

Garstang nodded "I know."

The computer banks clicked and chattered. Relays kicked, compensating
power, compensating course, compensating tides of gravitic force quite
capable of breaking a ship apart like a piece of flawed glass. The two
red binaries gave them a final glare of malice and were gone. They were
clear of the Throat.

A star the color of a peacock's breast lay dead ahead.

"Ready for approach," said Garstang.

"Stand by," said Kirk. "We'll wait until the last possible minute to
shift. If they haven't picked us up already, maybe they won't."

Garstang gave his orders. Kirk watched the blaze of peacock-blue grow
swiftly. No ambush in the Throat, so now what? Ambush on the world of
the blue star? Or nothing? A wild-goose chase, time and money wasted?
Or maybe Solleremos had planted those rumors to draw Kirk's attention
while a strike was made somewhere else.

Suddenly Kirk felt very old and very tired. He had been in the squadron
for twenty years, ever since he was sixteen, and in all these twenty
years the great game of stars, the strain, the worry, had never let up.

It must have been nice in a way, Kirk thought, in the old days a
couple of centuries ago when Earth still governed in fact, and all the
star-squadrons were part of the Galactic Navy, and the great battle was
with the galaxy itself and not with one another.

"We're getting close," said Garstang.

Kirk shook himself and got down to business. There followed a few
minutes of split-second activity, and then the _Starsong_ had shuddered
out of overdrive and was plunging toward a bright world almost
dangerously close to her. There was still no sign of any enemy, and the
communicators remained silent.

       *       *       *       *       *

An hour later by ship's chrono they had located the one port of entry
listed for the planet and they had set the _Starsong_ down in the
middle of a large piece of natural desert that served well enough for
what space traffic ever came here.

It was night on this side of the planet. There was no moon, but on a
cluster world a moon is a useless luxury. The sky blazes with a million
stars, so that day is replaced not by darkness but by the light of
another sort, soft and many-colored, full of strange glimmers and
flitting shadows. In this eery star-glow a town was visible about a
mile away. Otherwise there was nothing. No ships.... No legions of
Orion Sector.

"The ships could be hidden somewhere," Garstang said. "Maybe halfway
around the planet, but waiting to jump us as soon as they get word."

Kirk admitted that was possible. He put on his best dress uniform of
blue-and-silver, and strapped a portable communicator between his
shoulders. It rather spoiled the effect, but there was no help for
that. Garstang watched him.

"How many men will you want?" he asked.

"None. I'm going in alone."

Garstang's eyes widened. "I won't come right out and say you're crazy."

"I was here once before," said Kirk. "When old Volland was commander
and I was an ensign. These people are poor but proud. They have
traditions of long-ago splendor, claim their kings ruled the whole
cluster and so on. They dislike strangers, and won't let many in."

"But if Solleremos' men are already here--"

"That's the reason for the porto." Kirk frowned, trying to plan ahead.
"Exactly twenty minutes after I enter the town I'll contact you, and
I'll continue to do so at twenty-minute intervals. If I'm so much as a
minute late, take off and buzz hell out of the place. It'll give me a
bargaining point, anyway."

Garstang said dourly, "A lot can happen in twenty minutes. Suppose
you're not able to bargain?"

"Then you're on your own."

In the airlock, open now and filled with a dry, stinging wind, Kirk
paused, looking toward the distant town, a lonely blot of darkness
between the star-blazing sky and the gleaming sand. Here and there in
it lights burned, but they were few and somehow not welcoming.

"She's all yours," he said to Garstang. "If anything looks wrong to
you, don't wait for me. Take her away."

"Yes, sir," said Garstang.

Kirk smiled. He climbed down into the sand and began to walk.

The town took shape as he approached it. The stone-built houses, mostly
round or octagonal, were scattered out with no particular plan. Under
the red and gold and diamond-colored stars that burned above them as
bright as moons, they looked curiously remote and evil, like old
wizards in peaked hats, peering with little winking eyes. The dry wind
blew, laden with alien scents. Apart from the wind there was no sound.

       *       *       *       *       *

Three men met him at the edge of the town. They wore pale cloaks and
carried long staffs tipped with horn. They were all of seven feet tall.
They wore their hair high on their heads to accentuate this height, and
they were slender and graceful as reeds, walking along with a light
dancing step as though the wind blew them. But their faces in the
star-glow were smooth and secret, their eyes as expressionless as bits
of shiny glass.

"What does the man from outside desire?" asked one of them, in the
universal speech.

Kirk said, "He desires to speak with those others from outside who
enjoy your hospitality."

But they were not going to make it that easy for him. Their faces
remained impassive, and the one who had just spoken said coolly, "Our
lord has wisdom in all matters. Perhaps he will understand your words.
I do not."

They fell in around Kirk and moved with him into the wide sandy space
that went between the wandering houses. The nerves tightened up in
Kirk's belly, and his back felt cold. He looked at his wrist chrono,
carefully. There was no sound but the whispering of sand under their
feet. Garstang would be watching with the 'scope, but once he was in
among the houses he could no longer be seen.

That was almost at once. The tall men walked on with their light
swaying stride, so that he had to move at an undignified trot to keep
up. The stone houses with their high roofs closed in behind him. This
dark and brooding town ill accorded with old tales of cluster-kings, he
thought. Yet the past held many things.

When they were close to the center of the town, the leader stopped
beside a round structure from whose open door came light.

"Will the man from outside enter the dwelling of our lord?"

Kirk breathed a little easier as he went through the door. Apparently
there was no truth to the rumors that....

A chopping blow took him on the back of the head. He fell forward. He
was stunned but not unconscious, and he tried to roll over, thrashing
out blindly with his fists and feet. But at once there were men on top
of him, heavy solid men grinding his face into the gritty carpet,
pounding the wind out of him, holding him down.

In a minute his hands were tied tight behind him and his ankles lashed
together. They cut the straps of the porto and pulled it off him. Then,
like a sack of meal, he was dragged to the wall and propped upright.

In an absolute fury of rage, he spat blood out of his mouth and looked
up dizzily into the light.

There were three or four men here, obviously not natives of this
planet, but he did not pay much attention to them. The one he looked
at stood apart, directly in front of Kirk, a lean dark iron-faced man
with very alert eyes, and the easy, dangerous manner of one who enjoys
his work because he is so admirably well fitted for it, as a cat enjoys
hunting.

He said to Kirk, "My name is Tauncer."

Kirk nodded. He looked with feral interest at this most famous of
Solleremos' agents. "I should be flattered, shouldn't I?"

Tauncer shrugged. "We all do what we can, Commander. Each in his own
way."

"Well," said Kirk. "What do you want?"

"The answer to one simple question."

His face came closer to Kirk's, very tense, very keen, searching for
any sign of evasion.

He asked his question.

"What is Ferdias planning to do about Earth?"




                              CHAPTER II


There was a long moment of complete silence, during which Kirk stared
wide-eyed at Tauncer, and Tauncer probed him with a gaze like a scalpel.

On Kirk's part, it was a silence of sheer astonishment. No question
could have taken him so unexpectedly. He'd been prepared to be grilled
on squadron dispositions, forces in being, bases, all the things that
the men of Orion Sector would like to know about Lyra. But this--

It didn't make sense. Earth was not part of the present-day star
struggle. That old planet, so far back in the galaxy that Kirk had
never been within parsecs of it--it was history, nothing more. It had
had its day, its sons long ago had spread out to the stars and their
blood ran in the veins of men on many worlds, in Kirk himself. But its
great day had long been done, and the Sector governors who played the
cosmic chess-game for suns paid it no heed at all.

"I'll repeat," said Tauncer softly. "What's Ferdias planning to do
about Earth?"

"I haven't," said Kirk, "the faintest idea what you're talking about."

Tauncer sighed. "Possibly." He straightened up. "Even probably. But
I've been sent here to make the inquiry, and I'll need more than your
word and an expression of innocence. Brix!"

One of the other men came forward. Tauncer spoke to him in a low voice,
and he nodded, and went into the shadows across the room. Kirk's heart
pounded in alarm. He tried to get up, but he had been too well bound.
He could not see his chrono, but he did not think that more than seven
or eight minutes had elapsed since he had entered the town. Plenty of
time for mischief. He said to Tauncer,

"I didn't walk into this with my eyes completely shut. My men have
instructions."

"I'm sure they have. And don't feel too badly about this, Commander.
The details of the trap were based on a minute study of your psychology
and past record. It would have been almost impossible for you to avoid
falling into it. Can't you hurry that up Brix?"

"All ready." Brix came back carrying a light tripod with a projector
mounted on it. And now Kirk's heart sank coldly into the pit of
his stomach. He had seen that particular type of projector before.
It was called a vera-ray, and it beamed electric impulses in a
carefully-controlled range that absolutely stunned and demoralized a
man's brain, making him temporarily incapable of lying or resisting
questioning.

Kirk had no information about Earth to give away. But there were plenty
of other things in his mind, things of military importance to Lyra
Sector that Solleremos would be only too glad to get hold of.

How long now? Ten minutes more? Too long. Even five minutes would be
too long, with that projector pounding his skull.

He couldn't get up, but he could roll. He rolled, acting on a
split-second reflex that caught even Tauncer by surprise. The projector
was only four or five feet away. Brix and the other men were on top of
him again almost at once but not quite in time. He fetched the tripod
a thrashing kick, with both his feet bound together. It fell over. He
could not hope that it was broken, not on this soft carpeted floor, but
it would take them time to set it up again.

He tried to keep them busy as long as he could, but Tauncer understood
perfectly well what he was up to. He pulled his men off and set Brix to
adjusting the projector again, and turned to Kirk.

"You may as well spare yourself, Commander. I have my mission, and
the military have theirs. There are three cruisers standing off and
on, just out of radar range--they got word the moment you landed, and
they're already on their way."

He smiled briefly. "The price you pay for fame, Commander. The Fifth is
Ferdias' elite squadron, and nobody gets command of it unless he's in
Ferdias' special favor."

"Friendship is one thing," said Kirk hotly, "and favor is another. I
don't like your choice of words."

       *       *       *       *       *

He was just talking, words, sounds with no meaning. Inside he was
thinking of Garstang and the _Starsong_, and all the lives of all the
men in her. He had led them here.

He looked at Tauncer, and he began now to hate him, with a hate as deep
and cold as space.

"Ferdias will tear your heart out," he said.

"Perhaps," said Tauncer. "But he may have other things to occupy his
mind."

"Earth? He's never been there. None of us have. It's only a name, and
a half-forgotten one at that. Why should Earth occupy his mind? Why,
Tauncer?"

How long is twenty minutes? How long does it take three cruisers to
come from Point X beyond radar range to Target Zero? How long does it
take a man to realize he's through at last?

Brix said again, "All ready."

Tauncer nodded.

Brix touched a stud on the projector.

As though that touch had done it, a dull and mighty roaring echoed from
the desert--the full-throated cry of a heavy cruiser taking off.

The men looked, startled, toward the door. Desperately, Kirk rolled
sideways, out of the force that was already battering at the edges of
his mind.

"You out there!" he shouted at the doorway. "The men from outside
avenge treachery! Call your lord--"

One of Tauncer's men kicked him alongside the jaw. Kirk shut up,
hanging with blind determination to his consciousness. Fore-thought had
provided this one chance. He would not get another. He did not dare to
miss it.

The cruiser came low over the town. Dust sifted out of the cracks of
the stone walls. The men fell to their knees, covering their heads
with their arms. The floor rocked under them, beaten by the rolling
hammers of concussion.

The ripped sky closed upon itself with a stunning, thundering crash.
After a minute or two the noise and the shock wave ebbed away.

Silence.

The men began to get up again. But Kirk did not move.

The cruiser came back. This time it was even lower. Garstang must have
tickled her belly on the peaked roofs. Christ, thought Kirk, he's
overdoing it. This time the stones were shaking loose. When it was
over, a long thin shape came in through the doorway. It was the leader
of the tall men who had brought Kirk here.

His face was a mask of fear and rage as he spoke to Tauncer. "You said
that if we helped you, you would keep all other outsiders away!"

"We will," said Tauncer. "Listen--"

"Yes, listen," mocked Kirk. "Listen to it coming back. It'll keep
coming back, unless I walk out of here--until your town is flattened."

The tall man stood hesitating. Then the _Starsong_ roared back over.
When it was gone, he picked himself up and with a knife cut the cords
around Kirk's wrists and ankles.

"Oh, no," said Tauncer, starting forward. "You can't--"

The tall man turned on him a face livid with frustrated anger. "Shall
the children of cluster-kings be destroyed to serve _you_? Shall I call
my people in?"

Kirk, scrambling to his feet, saw outside the door the crowd of tall,
pale-cloaked men who had gathered. Tauncer saw them too, and stopped.

As Kirk picked up the porto and started for the door, the man Brix
cried violently, "Are we just going to stand here?"

Tauncer said levelly, "Why, yes, there are times when you do just that.
But I think we'll see the Commander again."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kirk went out through the door and through the crowd outside it. No one
followed him. He got the porto working and talked fast to Garstang,
then dropped the porto and sprinted out of the town toward the desert.

The cruiser dropped down ahead of him, as black and big against the
stars as a falling world. The lock yawned open, and Garstang was inside
it to meet him. He started to ask what had happened, but Kirk pushed
him bodily away down the corridor, heading for the bridge.

"Get in there and do your stuff, Joe. We've got three Orion cruisers on
our tail, as of the time we landed."

At that moment they heard the voice of the radarman crying out in
sudden anguish, "Sir!"

Garstang said in mild reproval, "You ought to give a man more time,
Commander. Radar, what's the bearing? All right, stand by--"

Orders crackled over the intercoms. Men moved swiftly at the
control-banks. The last thing Kirk heard before the howling roar of
take-off drowned everything was Garstang complaining that this sort of
thing was hard on a ship. Then there was a dull crash from somewhere
outside. The _Starsong_ was shaken as though by a great wind. Both Kirk
and Garstang had weathered enough fire to know that she had taken no
hurt. But the Orion cruisers were in range now, bearing down on them in
normal space at planetary speeds. The next shell would likely be a good
deal closer. They dared not wait for star-room to go into overdrive.

"Hit it!" yelled Kirk. Garstang threw the relays open. Sirens shrilled
and the lights went dim. The _Starsong_ shuddered vertiginously.

And then they were in overdrive and racing out toward the twin red suns
that guarded the entrance to the Dragon's Throat.

The scanners and ultra-speed radar came into play, replacing normal
instruments, making an illusion of sight. And the voice of the radarman
said dismally,

"They're still with us, sir. F-Type cruisers, heavy-armed and plenty
fast."

For the next quarter of an hour the _Starsong_ gained velocity at a
suicidal rate, but the Orion cruisers would not be left behind. The
radarman called their coordinates in a steady sing-song and Garstang
ordered more power and more power, keeping one eye on the stress
indicators and the other on the overhanging star-cliffs of the Throat
that seemed to be leaping toward the ship.

There was a limit. You could not take the Throat too fast. In that
swarm of suns a ship's fabric could be torn apart in some swift tide
of gravity, or vaporized in collision. Garstang had already passed the
limit. But the Orionids were refusing to be bluffed.

Kirk said nothing. This was Garstang's job, and he let him do it.
But he watched the indicators as closely as the captain. Under his
feet and all around him he could feel the _Starsong_ quiver, wincing
and flinching like a live thing now and again as some wild current
wrenched at her. His gaze flicked upward to the nebula, like a fiery
thundercloud above the Dragon's Throat, and then to the shoaling suns
below, with the narrow pass between them. The twin red stars of the
binary flashed by and were gone.

Suddenly, in the screen that mirrored space astern, a tiny nova flared
and winked away. The _Starsong_ trembled, like a running deer that
hears the hunter's gun.

"Wide astern," said Garstang. He looked at the cleft of the Throat and
shook his head. "But we'll have to slow down for that, and they know
it. They'll have time to range us before they come in themselves. They
won't," he added grimly, "have to come in."

Kirk nodded. "So we'll fool them. We won't go into the Throat either."

Garstang stood silent for a moment. Then he said, "I was hoping you
wouldn't think of that."

"Have you a better idea? Or even a worse one?"

"No." Garstang took a deep breath and spoke into the communicator. "New
course, north and zenith, forty degrees. We're running the nebula. On
full autopilot. If anyone wants to pray, go ahead."

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Starsong_ shot upward, plunging high into an area so choked with
stellar radiance that it made the Dragon's Throat seem like empty
space. The manual control-banks were dark and dead. From the calc-room
back of the bridge a new sound came, different from the normal
occasional outbursts of chattering. This was a steady sound, a sound of
authority, the voice of the _Starsong_ speaking. She was flying herself
now. The men aboard, Captain and Commander, able spaceman and ensign,
were her charges, dependent on her wisdom and her radar vision and her
strength. There was nothing they could do but wait.

The _Starsong_ spiralled higher, her radar system guiding her on a
twisting path between the clotted stars. Then Kirk saw a great glowing
edge slide onto the screen and grow into a vastness of dust and cosmic
drift illumined by the half-smothered stars it webbed.

The Orionid cruisers had altered course and were coming after them. But
the _Starsong_ was already skimming through glowing arms that reached
like misty tentacles searching for other stars to trap and feed upon.
Once in the cloud, she would be screened from the cruiser's radar beams
by the most effective scrambling device in space, the nebula itself.

Effective. Yes. But potentially as deadly as Orionid warheads. The only
difference was that with the nebula you had a chance. Against three
cruisers you had none.

Kirk strapped himself into the recoil chair beside Garstang. Nothing
moved now within the ship. The frail, breakable organism of breath and
heart and bone were encased in protective webs. This was the hour of
the ship, the hour of steel and flame and the racing electron, faster
than thought.

The _Starsong_ spoke to herself in the calc-room, and plunged headlong
into the cloud.




                              CHAPTER III


The universe was swallowed up in golden light, in racing, streaming
tides of luminous dust. Like an undersea ship of old the _Starsong_
raced with the gleaming currents and burst through denser, darker deeps
where the stars were faint and far away, to leap once more into a glory
of wild light where the drowned suns burned like torches in a mist. And
the voice in the calc-room rose to an unhuman crying as the computers
strained to take in the overwhelming surge of data from defensive
radar, analyze it, and send imperative commands to the control-relays.

It had almost a sound of insane music in it, that voice, and the
_Starsong_ danced to it, whirling and swaying between the fragments of
the drift that threatened her with instant destruction if she faltered
for a fraction of a second. Kirk, half-dazed, clung to his padded chair
and gasped for breath, and felt, and listened.

The same illusion gripped him now that had mastered him before when
forced to run a cloud--the feeling that the suns and star-worlds were
all gone, that he was enwrapped in the primal fire-mists of creation.
Mighty tides seemed to bear the ship forward, everything was a boil and
whirl of light, millrace currents seemed to rush them endlessly through
infinity, with all space and time cancelled out. He wondered briefly,
once, how the Orionids were doing, and then forgot them. The agony,
the intoxication, the godlike joy and the terror were far too great to
admit any petty worries about anything human.

Then, with almost shocking abruptness, they broke into clear space, and
the cloud was behind them. Like men enchanted waking from a dream, Kirk
and Garstang shook themselves and stood erect again, and the voice of
the _Starsong_ was stilled, and human voices spoke once more.

And human problems were still with them. Somewhat farther astern now,
but still doggedly following, three tiny flecks of darkness came after
them out of the cloud.

Kirk went into the com-room and made contact with his squadron far
ahead. He gave crisp orders, and then rejoined Garstang on the bridge.

"Larned's on his way," he said. "Can you keep clear?"

"I can," said Garstang, and ordered full power. He had nothing between
him and the Pleiades now but light-years of elbow room, and he took
full advantage of it. The Orion cruisers apparently had intercepted
Kirk's message, and made a frantic last attempt to overhaul him.

When that proved impossible, and their trial shots fell so far short
that it was obvious the range could not be made before the _Starsong_
reached the point of convergence with the squadron, they turned tail
and ran back for the cluster. When the squadron did arrive, space was
empty of everything but themselves and the distant stars.

The hard, excited voice of Larned, Kirk's Vice-Commander, came rapidly
as they joined the squadron.

"So there _is_ an Orionid base in there! By God, we'll soon--"

"No," Kirk cut in. "There was no base in there. There was a trap, for
me--only I still don't know just why they set it."

He went to the com-room and set up a message on the coding machine.
Top secret, to Ferdias at Vega, briefly detailing his encounter with
Tauncer.

_"--am unable to explain interest in Earth, and your plans concerning.
Suggest attempt to distract from some other objective? Await
instructions. Kirk."_

In a remarkably short time the answer came back.

_"Report Vega at once with full squadron." And it added,
"Unfortunately, no distraction. Ferdias."_

Looking at the cryptic tape, Kirk had an uneasy feeling that he had all
unknowingly stepped over one of those thresholds into a new phase of
existence, where nothing was going to be quite the same as it had been
ever again. He had once more that premonition that the pace, the tempo
of the great game for suns, was about to step up still faster.

He said nothing of that to Garstang or the others. To them, the
unexpected recall to home base meant an unlooked-for leave. And to him,
it would mean returning to Lyllin sooner than he had hoped. But even
that could not quite banish his uneasiness.

The squadron wheeled in tight formation and set its course toward the
great blue-white sun that burned in Lyra, capital of a mighty Sector
that was in everything but name an empire of stars.

When they made their world-fall, when the squadron swept down through
the bluish glare over Vega Town and landed on the spaceport, Larned
came at once from his own ship. The Vice-Commander, a blocky, brusque
and competent young man, bristled with questions.

"What the devil is all this about, Kirk? Pulling us in like this--"

"I haven't an idea," Kirk said. "But I'm about to find out. Call Lyllin
for me and tell her I'll be along soon."

       *       *       *       *       *

An air-car with a uniformed driver took him across the great city. It
was really two cities. The older city of graceful white towers had been
built long ago by the native Vegans, Lyllin's people. But then, more
than a century ago, the starships had come to Vega, the first wave of
explorers and colonizers from the inner galaxy. They had not been all
Earthmen, even though that wave had first started from Earth. By the
time they reached here, Earthmen had already mixed and mated with many
other human star-folk. It was these newcomers who had built the new
part of Vega Town.

It was to the newer city that the air-car took him, to the looming,
dominating mass of Government house. A lift took him down from the
roof, and he went through the corridors, a tall man with a faintly
worried look on his copper-bronzed face. Efficient secretaries shunted
him smoothly and quickly into a room few people ever entered.

It seemed a small room, to be the center of government of so many
stars. For this was the center--the Sectors each had their elected
legislatures but it was the Governors who wielded the power.

"Stop saluting, Kirk," said Ferdias. "You know you're at ease when you
step in here."

Ferdias came around the desk. He limped, from the crash of a Class
Twenty long ago. But you never remembered his limp, or how small a man
he was. You saw only his face, and when you saw it you knew why, at the
age of forty, he was one of the five great Governors.

"Now let's have it," he said.

Kirk let him have it, the full story of the trap in the cluster. And
Ferdias' face got just a trifle longer.

He said, finally, "You had no business going in alone. But since you
got out, I'm glad you did it. For I'm sure now of what I only suspected
before. In his eagerness to find out how much I know, Solleremos has
told me what I _wanted_ to know."

Kirk, frankly puzzled, said, "I just don't get it. What is Ferdias
planning to do about Earth? What plans _would_ you have about it?"

Ferdias limped back to his chair, and sat down, and then looked up
keenly. "Kirk, you're at least half Earth blood. Tell me, how do you
feel about Earth?"

Kirk said, "But I've never been there. You know that--I was born in
a transport off Arcturus, and have never been farther back in than
Procyon."

"I know. But what do you think about Earth?"

Kirk made a gesture. "What's there to think about? It's a third-rate
planet, from what I hear, important only because star-flight began
there. Its Galactic Council tried to hold all the galaxy together in
one government, but of course that proved impossible. Hell, it's hard
enough to hold a Sector together, let alone the whole galaxy."

"But Earth isn't any of the Sectors, of course," said Ferdias.

Kirk looked at him keenly. "Of course not. Sector Governors don't
touch Earth's small federal district...." He stopped. He said, after a
moment, "Or do they? Do they, Ferdias?"

"Solleremos would like to," said Ferdias.

Kirk was astonished. "You mean, he wants to take _Earth_ into Orion
Sector?"

"He wants to very much indeed," said the other. "Listen, Kirk.
Solleremos' pressure on our borders lately has been only cover-up. It's
Earth he's after."

"But _why_? That unimportant little star system--"

"Is it so unimportant?" Ferdias' blue eyes, hot and flaring now,
fascinated Kirk. "Materially, maybe it is--a worn-out, third-rate
world. But psychologically, it's a very important world indeed. Think
of the Earth blood mingled in all the galaxy races now--in you and in
me, in half the civilized peoples! Think of the feelings they have,
perhaps without altogether realizing it, toward that old planet they've
never seen! They know it no longer directs things, they know its
Council and Navy are a shadowy sham--but still it's Earth, it's the
old center of things, the old heart-world. Suppose one of the other
Governors gets Earth into his Sector, and speaks from it thereafter?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Kirk saw it now. He realized, not for the first time, that when it came
to galactic intrigue he was a babe in arms.

It _would_ give any of the rival Governors a colossal psychological
advantage, to make the old center of the galaxy his seat of government.
Commands that came from Earth would have a psychological potency hard
to withstand.

"But you're not going to let Solleremos get away with it?" he exclaimed.

"No Kirk. _I_ don't want Earth. But I'm not going to let Orion Sector
grab it, either!"

He went on. "Solleremos knows I'll try to stop him. That's why he had
Tauncer, his right-hand man, set that little trap for you. They know I
trust you. They hoped I'd have told you how I plan to block them."

Kirk looked at him, and then said, "How _are_ you going to stop them?"

Ferdias said, "There's a big celebration coming up on Earth soon.
The two-hundredth anniversary of the first space-flight from Earth.
It means a lot to them. Their Council invited me to send an official
delegation to represent Lyra Sector. So I'm sending you."

Kirk stared. "Me--to Earth? But what can _I_ do if--"

Ferdias interrupted. "The Fifth Squadron will go with you. To take part
in the commemoration pageant, the fly-over."

Now Kirk began to understand. "Then if Solleremos tries anything, the
Fifth will be there waiting for him?"

"Exactly." Ferdias spoke the word like a wolf-snap. "I know Solleremos'
intentions. I know about when he plans his grab for Earth. Earth can't
stop him, not with their small forces. But the Fifth can!"

Kirk felt a bit stunned. Fighting the hidden border wars of the rival
Governors was one thing. But a full-fledged struggle between Sectors,
back there at old Earth, was quite another. It could rock the galaxy....

Ferdias went on matter-of-factly, "You'll take off five days from now.
You may be there a while, so you'll take full supply auxiliaries and
transports."

Kirk looked up. Transports meant the families of all personnel would
accompany the squadron--and that meant Lyllin would go with him. He was
glad of that.

"But when we get there," he said. "Besides taking part in that
celebration, what do we _do_?"

Ferdias said, "Go and look up your ancestral home."

"My--what?"

"Ancestral home. Place where the Kirks came from, on Earth. I had it
hunted out, and it's still standing. It's in Orville, a place near the
city New York. You go and look it up first thing."

Kirk began to get it. "You'll send me orders there?"

"You'll hear from me. And you'll get warning if Solleremos moves on
Earth. But Kirk--one more thing."

"Yes?"

"You're not to talk of this to anyone. _Anyone._"

       *       *       *       *       *

Kirk, as the air-car took him homeward across the city, hardly saw the
brilliant Vegan capital flashing by beneath. He was badly worried. A
deadly, secret galactic struggle was moving toward crisis, and he was
not the man to combat conspiracies, he was no good at plots and plans.
But--and his jaw set hard--if Solleremos _did_ try to grab Earth by
force, there was one thing the Fifth was very good at, and that was
fighting.

He couldn't tell Lyllin about any of this, not against Ferdias' strict
injunction. But at least she would be going with him this time, and
that would be good news to her. He strode eagerly into the metalloy
cottage that was home to him. Its familiar rooms were cool and silent.
He found Lyllin waiting for him on the terrace.

The blue sun was touching the hills, and the sky was flooded with a
purple dusk. Lyllin came toward him. She was all Vegan and looked it,
her flesh showed pale as new gold, with the darker masses of her hair
picking up the same tint and turning it to copper. She was dressed in
the fashion of her own people, in a chiton so mistily transparent that
her fine slender body seemed to be draped in a bit of the oncoming dusk
itself.

He held her, and then told her his news, and was surprised that it did
not seem to make her happy. "To Earth?" she murmured. "Just for the
space-flight anniversary? It's strange--"

"But this time you'll be with me," he said. "Not on the voyage--you'll
ride transport, of course--but on Earth, all the time I'm there."

"How long will that be, Kirk?"

He didn't know, and said so. Lyllin's face shadowed subtly. But she had
a way of silence, and it was not until later that night that she spoke
of it.

She said, suddenly, "I shall hate it at Earth."

Kirk was shocked. "But why in the world? That's ridiculous. A place
you've never seen, and hardly know about--"

"It's your place, your people. Not mine." She was not looking at him.
"You'll be going home. But what will they think of me there? What will
_you_ think of me there, among your own people?"

Kirk turned her around with rough and angry hands. "I'm ashamed of you.
If you could even think a thing like that--" He shook her. "Listen to
me. Earth is no more to me than it is to you. It's a name, a place
where my grandfather five times removed happened to be born. I've as
much blood of other worlds in me as Earth blood. And as for you--"

Her eyes had tears in the corners of them, now. Her mouth was soft and
uncertain, like a child's. He said, in a different tone, "No matter
where we go, you'll be Lyllin. And I'll love you."

She came close in the circle of his arms, and she kissed him with a
wild possessiveness. And her lips were bitter with those sudden tears.

But Kirk felt that she was not convinced. She had the Vegan pride, and
if they treated her at Earth like a freak, an alien....

In the depth of his soul, he cursed Solleremos and his ambitious
schemes. For the worry that was in him had deepened. The danger that
the Fifth was going into, the danger that would explode if that
unscrupulous grab for the old planet was attempted, was not the only
one. He felt now that beside that there was another, subtler danger
waiting for Lyllin and himself at Earth.




                              CHAPTER IV


The squadron was out of overdrive, cruising at normal approach
velocity. There was a sun ahead in space. Compared to the blazing
giants of deep space, it was not much, merely a small yellow star
looking rather lonely in the midst of a great emptiness. Kirk studied
it. The Sun. Not just any sun, _the_ Sun. How should he feel about
it? Like a child seeing its father for the first time, or like a man
returning to an ancient hearth that has long ago lost any meaning for
him? Kirk searched his heart, and nothing came. It was only another
star.

Garstang touched his arm and pointed, to where far off a little green
planet swung to meet them.

"Earth."

The squadron rushed toward it, the cruisers and supply-ships and
transports, the men and women and children, strangers from the far
reaches of the galaxy. And yet not quite strangers either, for the
names that had come from this world were still among them, and the
traditions, and even some of the blood. Two hundred years ago, their
forefathers had left it. And now they were coming back.

A quiet had settled on the bridge. Kirk supposed it was the same with
the whole squadron, everybody staring and thinking his or her own
thoughts. He wondered what Lyllin was thinking, and wished she were
with him instead of back there in one of the transports.

Earth came closer. He could see clouds, and the white splash of a polar
cap. Closer still, and there were seas, and the outlines of continents.
Colors began to show more clearly, and the land became ridged with
mountain chains. Great lakes took form, and dark-green areas of forest,
and winding rivers. A nice world. A pretty world. Kirk hated it. Its
other name was Trouble.

"Why did Ferdias have to pick _us_ for this job?"

Unconsciously he had spoken aloud, or loud enough for Garstang to hear.
"It's only for a visit," said Garstang. "Just a celebration. What's
wrong with that?" His tone was mild, without mockery.

But Kirk looked at him sharply. He knew that Garstang and Larned and
all his other officers and men must have been talking and wondering.
Wondering why they'd been pulled out of their needful place for this
rather meaningless celebration.

They came down past the shoreline of a blue-green ocean, past a city
that sprawled over islands and peninsulas and up inland river valleys,
and then beneath them was a big spaceport. The squadron roared in to
its appointed landing, bristling on its best behavior, every ship set
down with masterly precision, and there was a crowd assembled there to
meet it. Flags whipped in the wind. The brassy music of a band blared
out, immensely stirring with a solemn throb of drums beneath it.

The men of the Fifth debarked and formed in marching order, every boot
polished and every uniform immaculate, a solid line of blue and silver
glittering in the soft blaze of this golden sun. Kirk felt the heat of
it in his face. His heels struck solidly on the ground, and the wind
touched him, balmily, laden with fragrances strange to him. And he
thought, "This is Earth." He looked around at it.

He could see only the spaceport, and that was old and worn and poor.
The tarmac was cracked and blackened, the ancient buildings weathered.
Opposite the squadron were drawn up twelve cruisers with the old
insigne of the Galactic Navy on their bows, and with their crews
standing at attention in front of them. Those old, small ships--why,
they were Class Fourteens, obsolete for years! He supposed they were
all Earth had.

Two men walked toward him. One was a middle-aged civilian, the other an
arrow-straight, elderly man in black uniform that also bore the old
Navy insigne. He stiffly returned Kirk's salute.

"Nice landing, Commander," he said. "I'm First Admiral Laney, and I
welcome your squadron."

       *       *       *       *       *

Incredulously, Kirk realized that the old admiral was keeping up the
pretense that the Fifth Squadron was still part of the Navy.

It was so preposterous it was funny! Not for a century had the old
Galactic Navy had any real existence. Its staff never sent any orders
out to the squadrons of the five Governors, any more than Central
Council dared send orders to the Governors themselves. Yet this old
Earth officer was trying hard, in front of the crowd, to act as though
he really were Kirk's superior officer....

Then, seeing the faintly desperate look in Laney's eyes, Kirk softened.
After all, what difference did it make--it was only a pretense and he
felt sorry for the old chap trying to play this part.

He saluted again and said, "Fifth Squadron, Kirk commanding, reporting
for orders, sir!"

A look of grateful relief crossed Laney's face. He said uncertainly,
"At ease, Commander. Let me present Council Chairman John Charteris."

Charteris, a graying, eager, anxious man, shook hands warmly. He began
a little speech, into the tele-cameras close by. "We welcome back one
of the gallant squadrons of the Galactic Navy to take part in our
commemoration of--"

When the speeches and handshaking and bandplaying were over, Kirk gave
an order, and his men broke ranks. Larned came up to him.

"Shall we debark our people now?"

The old admiral told Kirk, "Quarters are all ready for them."

Charteris said, "But you and your wife, Commander, must be my guests."

They walked back between the lofty, looming ships. The women and
children and babies of the men of the Fifth started coming out of the
transports, and efficient Earth officers began smoothly shuttling them
into cars to take them to their quarters. From around the fences, a big
crowd of Earth folk watched interestedly.

Of a sudden, for the first time his men's families seemed a little
outlandish to Kirk. The women and children were of so many different
star-peoples, so many different ways of speech and dress. He looked
resentfully for amusement in the Earth faces, but could not detect any.

At the transport he excused himself and went in to Lyllin's cabin. He
stopped short when he saw her. He had never seen her like this. She
wore an Earth-style dress of impeccable lines, was perfect in a smart,
sophisticated way. She still didn't look like an Earthwoman, not with
that skin and eyes and hair. But she looked stunning, and he said so.

"I'm glad I look civilized enough for your people," Lyllin said sweetly.

"My people?" Kirk drew back stiffly. "So you're still brooding on that?
That's fine. I'm not in a tough enough spot here, my wife has to get
super-sensitive and make it tougher."

Lyllin's expression changed. "What kind of spot?" He was silent. She
looked at him steadily. "It's something dangerous, isn't it?"

"I'd have told you if it were something I could tell you," he said.
"You know that. Will you forget it? And forget about these people being
_my_ people!"

He went out with her, and Lyllin went through the introductions, cool
and proud. Kirk told Larned aside, "Two-day leaves for all personnel
in regular rotation. Port facilities will take care of refitting and
fueling."

Larned grunted. "I've seen better facilities on fifth-rate planets.
Plenty old! But we'll make out."

Charteris' car swept them along a broad highway to New York. It had a
stiff, strange look to Kirk, its vertical towers huddled together bold
and black against the setting sun. He thought it a cramped and crowded
place, though Charteris' terrace apartment high above the myriad lights
was pleasant.

There was a dinner there that night, and drinks, and more speeches, and
much talk about the Commemoration. Sector politics were unobtrusively
avoided. Kirk fretted and worried through it all. What was Solleremos
doing, where were his squadrons? Ferdias had said he'd get warning if
they moved, but would that warning come in time?

In the morning, he found Charteris oddly changed. He looked at Kirk
with a queerly doubtful expression.

Kirk said, "Before we make arrangements about the Commemoration, I--"

"Oh, there's no hurry about that," Charteris said hastily. Then
suddenly he asked, "Do you know if Orion Sector will send a token
squadron too?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Alarm rang a bell in Kirk's brain instantly. What was behind the
question? Had Charteris heard something that he hadn't?

He answered, "Why, no, I don't. But surely you would know--"

Charteris continued to eye him with that dubious expression as he said,
"We sent an invitation to Governor Solleremos to take part, of course.
But doubtless we'll soon hear from him."

Kirk thought swiftly, he _has_ heard something--something that he
doesn't want me to know! But what? Was Orion already moving, were
Orionid forces coming to Earth on the excuse of the celebration, just
as he had?

He'd get no information from Charteris. He'd better contact Ferdias,
as quickly as possible. He was only a naval commander, and he felt an
enormous desire for definite orders in this crisis. He could only get
such orders at the rendezvous Ferdias had told him to go to.

Kirk said casually, "While I'm here on Earth I want to look up my
ancestors' old home here, and now would be a good time. It's in
a village not too far away, I understand. If we could borrow a
ground-car--"

Charteris seemed glad to comply. "Of course. A sentimental pilgrimage,
in a way? Very understandable--"

Kirk refused the offer of a driver. But by the time he and Lyllin got
out of New York and were rolling northward, he almost regretted that
decision. It seemed ridiculous for a man who could pilot a squadron
half across the galaxy in full overdrive, but the traffic frightened
him. He hadn't done much driving, and certainly none on highways like
this big northern boulevard. On this crowded Earth, people apparently
still used ground-cars in great numbers for short distances, and it was
not until they branched off on a subsidiary highway that Kirk felt easy.

He said then, "I want to explain about this ancestral home business."

Lyllin, looking straight ahead, said, "You don't have to explain. It's
perfectly natural that you should want to see where your people came
from."

"Will you stop behaving like a woman and listen?" he said angrily.
"_My_ people, again. What the devil would I care where my seventh
great-grandfather lived. I'm doing what Ferdias ordered." He added, "I
wasn't supposed to tell you even that, but I couldn't very well go off
on this supposed sentimental pilgrimage without you."

Lyllin's expression changed. "Then there'll be someone from Ferdias to
meet you there secretly, is that it? And I'm not to know about what?"

"That's it," he said. "Ferdias' orders were not to tell anyone."

He thought that Lyllin looked somehow relieved. "I don't mind. I'm
worried, I wish I knew, but it's all right if you can't tell me."

It came to him that she was relieved to learn he didn't really care
about his Earth ancestors, that that had only been an excuse.

Kirk felt a sharp relief himself, to be on his way to Orville, to the
old house there where Ferdias' agent would be waiting to tell him what
to do. In this gathering crisis he couldn't act blindly! It was vital
to get directive information as soon as possible.

They turned off the big boulevard onto quiet, tree-lined back roads.
These roads were old and rambling, accomodatingly twisting around hills
and ponds and even houses. Some of the houses were modern chromaloy
villas, but there were antique stone houses also, and once he and
Lyllin both exclaimed when they saw a very old house that was built all
of wood.

Out here away from the city, everything looked ancient. Stone fences
that had the moss of centuries on them, a steepled church mantled thick
with ivy, worn fields that had been tilled for ages. In the fields,
driverless automatic tractors were lumbering about their work, but
there seemed little bustle or activity. Kirk thought that this was an
old, worn world....

A brilliant bird flashed across the road and he and Lyllin argued what
it was. "A robin, I think," Kirk said doubtfully. "In school, when I
was little, we had an old Earth poem about Robin Redbreast. I didn't
know then what it was."

"Not nearly so splendid as a flame-bird," Lyllin said. "But the red of
it, and the green trees, and the blue sky.... It's a pretty world, in
its way."

       *       *       *       *       *

They rolled finally down a little hill and over a bridged stream into
the town of Orville. It was only a village, with shops around a big
open square. There was a corroded statue of a soldier at the center of
the park, and benches on which old men sat in the sun.

Kirk asked directions of a merchant standing in front of his shop,
a chubby man who stared open-mouthed at the two visitors. And Kirk
suddenly realized how strange indeed they must look in this sleepy
little Earth village--he in his blue-and-silver starman's uniform, his
face dark from foreign suns, and Lyllin whose beauty was a breath of
the alien.

He was glad to drive on out of the village, on the designated road. It
was an even more rambling road, looping casually along the side of a
shallow valley whose neat farms and fields and woods lay silent in the
blaze of the soft golden sun. They met no other ground-cars, though
an occasional air-car hummed across the blue sky. Kirk kept counting
houses, and when he had counted five he turned in at a lane, and
stopped.

The house was of field-stone, an ancient, brown dumpy structure that
had a faintly forlorn, deserted look. Under the big, stiff, dark-green
trees in its front yard--were they the trees called "pines?"--the grass
was high and ragged. The lane went on past the house, past an orchard
of gnarled trees heavy with green fruit, to a big old barn. There was
no one in sight, and no sign that anyone was here.

"Are you sure it's the place?" asked Lyllin.

He nodded, moving toward the porch. "It's the place. Ferdias had
his agent here buy it, weeks ago, so we'd have this quiet place for
contacts. There should be someone here."

There was a bell-push at the door, but no one answered it. Kirk tried
the door. It swung open, and they went in.

They went into a room such as they had never seen before. The walls
were of painted wood, instead of plastic. The furniture was wooden too,
and of archaic design. The room, the house, were very silent.

"Look at this," said Lyllin, in tones of surprise.

She was touching a chair, and the chair rocked back and forth on its
bottom. "I thought it was a child's toy but it's not made for a child."

He shook his head. "Beyond me. And it's beyond me too why Ferdias' man
isn't here!"

He called, but there was no answer. He went through all the rooms, and
there was no one.

Kirk felt a mounting alarm. Had something gone wrong with Ferdias'
careful plans? Where was Ferdias' agent, where was the man who should
have met him in this secret rendezvous with the information and orders
he must have?

Suppose that man didn't come--who then could give him warning of
Solleremos' strike, if Orion _did_ strike?




                               CHAPTER V


Kirk stood, his dismay and anxiety increasing by the minute. What was
he going to do?

He said, finally, "We'll have to wait. Ferdias' man is bound to be
along soon."

"You mean--perhaps stay here all night?" said Lyllin. "But food, and
beds--"

"We'd better look around," he said unhappily.

They found fairly new blankets on the beds. And in the old kitchen
cupboards was food in the self-heating plastipacks.

"We can make out," he said. "But it's a hell of a thing."

While Lyllin prepared their supper, he went out and restlessly walked
around the place. The weedy yard ran into brushy fields and nearby
woods. The old barn was empty, and the outbuildings were shabby and
forlorn.

He did not think much of Earth, if this was a sample. He went back
inside, and helped Lyllin solve the puzzle of an ancient sink. Even the
reddening sunset light pouring through the windows could not make the
old wooden walls and worn cupboards look less dingy.

He said so, and Lyllin smiled. "It's not so bad. We'll eat out on that
back porch--it's less musty there."

The porch was not screened, and friendly insects dropped in upon them
as they ate. The whole western sky was a flare of red, great bastions
of crimson cloud building ever higher. Under the sunset, beyond the
fields, the ragged woods brooded darkly.

A small animal came soundlessly out of the high grass and stared at
them with greenish eyes.

"What is it, Kirk--a wild creature?"

He looked. "It's a cat, that's what it is. An Earthman in the
_Stardream_ had one for a pet, kept it at Base. He called it Tom." He
tossed a bit of food onto the step. "Here, Tom."

The cat stalked carefully forward, eyed them coldly, then bent to the
food. After a moment it turned its back on them and departed.

Darkness fell. Kirk began to feel a little desperation. Ferdias' man
hadn't come. What if he didn't come at all? How long could they wait in
this forgotten backwater, not knowing what was going on out there in
deep space?

Lyllin said, "Isn't it possible your man is waiting in Orville, that
village--and doesn't know you're here?"

"It could be, I suppose." Kirk grasped at the straw. "I'll go down to
the village. If he's there, he'll see me. Mind waiting--just in case
someone does come here?"

She said she didn't mind. But he took the compact shocker from his
coat-pocket and left it for her before he went out.

Kirk drove rapidly down the lonely, dark road to the village. But the
little town looked dark and lonely too, when he got there. The shops
were almost all closed. He saw only a few people. It was very quiet. In
the shadows of the square, the old iron soldier stood stiffly.

The lights of a tavern caught Kirk's eye, and he went toward it. It
seemed about the only place where his man might be, and he needed a
drink anyway. He shouldered in, and instantly a small buzz of talk
fell silent. Kirk went to the bar, and the men at the farther end of
it followed him with their eyes. The tavern-keeper, a bustling, skinny
man, hurried up and tried to act as though a deep-space naval Commander
was no unusual visitor at all.

"Yes, sir, what'll it be?"

Kirk's eyes searched the rack of unfamiliar bottles. He shook his head.
"You pick it. Something strong and short."

"Yes, sir, some fine old whisky right here." Whisky--well, he'd heard
of that. He drank it, and didn't like it. He let his eyes rest on the
other man. Could one of them be Ferdias' agent?

He didn't think so. Most of these men looked like farmers or
mechanics, hearty-looking, sunburned men, the younger ones tall
and gangling. One was a very old man with a straggling beard who
shamelessly stared at Kirk with bright, beady eyes. They weren't
unfriendly, but they were aloof. Kirk had an idea he'd get little out
of this insular bunch. He might as well go--none of these could be
Ferdias' man.

But as he set his glass down, the bearded old man limped forward,
peering bright-eyed and inquisitive at him.

"You're the fellow who was asking directions to the old Kirk place
today," he said, almost accusingly.

Kirk nodded. "That's right."

       *       *       *       *       *

The old Earthman was obviously waiting for an explanation. It occurred
to Kirk that he'd better give one, if he didn't want this whole
countryside wondering audibly why a starman had come here.

He said, "Kirk's my name. My great-great something grandfather, a long
time ago, came from here. I'm just looking up the old place, that's
all."

He turned to go then, feeling that he was wasting time here. But one of
the middle-aged Earthmen came forward to him with hand outstretched.

"Why, if your folks came from here, that makes you sort of an Orville
boy, doesn't it? What do you know about that! Vinson's my name,
Captain."

"Commander," Kirk corrected, as he shook hands. "Glad to know you. I
guess I'll be on my way."

"Say, now, not without me buying you a drink," boomed Vinson. "Not
every day one of our own boys comes back from way out there."

There was a chorus of agreement, and more outstretched hands, and
hearty introductions. Kirk stared at them in wonder. What in the
world--Then he got it.

All over space, the pride of Earthmen was proverbial, and their
clannishness. He'd met it and he didn't like it. He was therefore all
the more astonished now, that they should suddenly accept him as one of
their own. Seven generations, and the whole width of the galaxy between
him and this place, yet they claimed him as "one of our own boys"!

He wanted to get out now, he'd found no trace of Ferdias' agent here
and time was passing, but it wasn't easy to get out. More men kept
coming into the tavern, as word got around, to shake hands with and
buy a drink for the "Orville boy" from far-off space. Vinson, a
jovial master of ceremonies, rattled on with introductions Kirk only
half-heard--"Jim Barnes, whose farm's up beyond your folks' old place",
"here's old Pete Marly, he can remember when there were still Kirks
living there," on and on until in desperation, Kirk thanked them and
shouldered toward the door.

"Have to go, my wife's waiting," he said, and a friendly chorus of
voices bade him good-night, "I'll ride with you far as my own house,"
said Vinson.

Kirk was sweating as he drove out of the village. A hell of a way to
conduct a secret job, with the whole village bawling his name! And it
had got him nowhere--

Vinson's house was the second on the same road. As he got out of the
car, he said, "Sure does beat all, your coming back from so far. Shows
it's a small world."

"It's a small galaxy," Kirk said, and Vinson nodded. "Sure is. Well,
I'll be seeing you. Drop over. Good-night."

As Kirk drove on, he was faintly startled by an upgush of yellow light
that silhouetted the bending trees ahead. A great segment of silver
was rising in the sky. Then he realized--it was that moon that they'd
passed on their way in.

The moon of Earth, the "Moon" of the old Earth poems people still read.
Not too impressive, but pretty. But how the threads of all you'd read
and heard kept subtly running back to this old planet! He supposed
some of these flowers whose fragrance he could smell on the warm night
air were "roses". Funny, how much you knew about Earth that you didn't
realize you knew.

       *       *       *       *       *

The old road gleamed beneath the rising moon. He glanced up at the
star-pricked sky. Had the Kirk who was his seventh grandfather, all
those years ago, looked at the starry sky as he walked this same road?
He must have. He'd looked too long, and finally he'd gone out to that
sky and not come back.

The house was dark when he turned in at the lane, but he saw Lyllin's
dim figure sitting on the front porch.

"No. No one came," she said, as he sat down beside her.

"And no sign of any agent of Ferdias in the village," Kirk said. "A
fine thing. We'll have to wait."

They sat a while in the soft warm darkness. Kirk's thoughts were more
and more gloomy. They couldn't wait here forever, yet he had to make
contact as Ferdias had ordered--

Strange, glowing little sparks of light drifted across his vision, and
now he became aware that the whole dark yard and woods were swarming
with such floating sparks. They winked on and off, in a fashion he had
never seen, dancing and whirling under the dark trees.

"What are they?" asked Lyllin, fascinated.

"Fireflies?" Kirk said doubtfully. "I remember that word, from
somewhere...."

Then he suddenly started and exclaimed, "Hell, what--"

A small sinuous body had suddenly plopped into his lap. Two green eyes
looked insolently up at him. It was the cat.

"It's very tame," said Lyllin. "It must have been somebody's pet."

"Probably belonged to the last people who lived here," Kirk said. "It's
tame, all right."

He stroked its furry back. The cat half-closed its eyes and emitted a
rusty purring sound. "Like that, eh, Tom?"

Tom settled down cozily, in answer. Lyllin reached to stroke its head.

With startling swiftness, the cat recoiled from her and leaped off
Kirk's lap. It stared green-eyed back at them, then started across the
lawn.

Kirk turned, laughing. "Crazy little critter--" He stopped suddenly.
"Lyllin, what's the matter?"

She was crying and he had rarely seen her cry. "Did it scratch you?"

"No. But it feared me, and hated me," she said. "Because it knew I'm
alien."

Kirk said, "Oh, rot. The wretched beast is just afraid of strangers."

"It wasn't afraid of you. It sensed that I'm different--"

He put his arm around her, mentally cursing Tom. Then, as he wrathfully
looked after the cat, Kirk stiffened.

Tom had started across the lawn toward the dark brush nearby. But the
cat had stopped. And, as Kirk looked, Tom suddenly emitted a hiss and
recoiled. It went away from the dark clumps, in long swift leaps.

Kirk's thoughts raced. The cat had recoiled from that brush, exactly
as it had recoiled from Lyllin. For the same reason? Because someone
alien, not of Earth, was in those shadows? He thought he could hear a
slight sound, and his muscles suddenly strung tight. Ferdias' agent
wouldn't approach so secretly. Non-Earthmen skulking in those shadows
meant only one thing.

He said, "Come on in the house and forget it, Lyllin. I could stand
another drink--"

But instantly, when inside the house, Kirk made a lunge toward the
nearest bedroom and grabbed for the blankets there. He tossed one of
the blankets to Lyllin with frantic speed.

"Wrap it around your head--_quick_!"

She was intelligent. But she was not used to obeying orders instantly
and without question "Kirk, what--"

He grabbed the blanket out of her hands and started wrapping it many
times around her head, speaking in a whisper as he did so.

"Out there. Someone. If they want to be quiet about it, they're sure to
use a sonic knockout-beam. _Hurry_--"

       *       *       *       *       *

He pulled her to the floor. The blanket swathed her head. He wrapped
the other one around his own head, fold after fold. They lay, tense,
waiting.

Nothing happened.

He thought how foolish they would look, lying on the floor with their
heads swathed, if nothing at all did happen.

He still did not move. He waited.

A series of small sounds began in the back of the house, just vaguely
audible through the blanket-folds. A chattering of windows, creaking
and rattling of beams, clink of dishes.

The sounds came slowly through the house toward them. _Chatter,
rattle_--leisurely advancing. He knew then he'd guessed right. The
sonic beam itself was pitched too low to hear. But it was sweeping the
house.

It hit them. Lyllin stirred suddenly with a small sound, and Kirk
gripped her arm, holding her down. He knew what she was feeling. He
felt it himself, the sudden shocking dizziness, the keening inside his
head. Even through the swathings of thick blanket, the beam made itself
felt. Without protection they'd already be unconscious.

The shock passed. The beam was sweeping on to the front of the house.
Kirk remained on the floor, his hand still holding Lyllin's arm. He'd
used sonics himself. He had a pretty good idea of how this one would be
used.

He was right. The small, half-audible sounds of the house and its
shuddering contents came walking back toward them.

_Chatter--clink. Rattle--clink--_

It hit him again, and he set his teeth and endured it. And again it
passed them, and once more the kitchen dishes started talking.

Kirk suddenly thought of the unsuspecting Earth folk in the nearby
farms, sleeping peacefully in their old houses, without ever a dream
that in their quiet countryside, alien folk from the stars were pitted
in a secret struggle that had this whole ancient planet as its prize.

The sounds shut off abruptly. Kirk unwrapped his head, and twitched at
Lyllin till she did the same. He made a warning motion to her, to keep
down, and he himself crawled forward to the old living-room. He had the
little shocker in his hand now.

In a corner of the living-room, behind a grotesque old table, he
waited. There was no sound at all.

Then there was one. Footsteps, on the porch outside--coming fast and
confidently to the door.

A man came into the room. He wore a dark space-jacket and slacks, he
carried a shocker, and he walked like a dancing panther.

Kirk knew him.

His name was Tauncer.




                              CHAPTER VI


Behind Tauncer came an older man, as gray and solid and rough at the
edges as an old brick. He could have been an Earthman, and probably
was. He was loaded down with a porto, and some other piece of equipment
in a carrying case slung over his shoulders.

Taking no chances at all, but allowing himself to feel a deep and
vicious pleasure, Kirk fired from behind the table.

Even so, warned by some faint sound or perhaps only by the instinct of
the hunter, Tauncer swung toward him in the instant before the burst of
energy hit. He did not quite have time to fire. The impetus of the turn
made him hurtle halfway across the room to hit the floor headlong.

The brick-like man was slower. He had only managed to open his mouth
and lift his hand halfway toward his armpit when Kirk's second blast
dropped him quietly where he stood.

Kirk got up. He found that he was shaking. He looked down at Tauncer,
thinking how easily a man could die, flexing his fingers in a hungry
way. Lyllin came into the open doorway, and he said angrily,

"You were to stay back there."

Her eyes did not leave his face. She murmured, "Yes. I did wrong."
Then, looking at the sprawled bodies, "Are they dead?"

"We're not out on the Sector frontier," Kirk growled. "I wish we were.
But here on these old planets they take violence seriously. No, I just
used stunning bursts on them."

He rummaged the house until he found wire, and bound the hands of the
two men very securely behind them. Then he searched them. He did not
find any documents, which was no surprise. He removed a shocker from
the brick-like man, and took it and the porto and the heavy carrying
case far out of reach.

The carrying case contained a vera-ray projector with its tripod
collapsed. Possibly the same one Tauncer had tried to use on him in the
cluster world. Tauncer seemed extremely fond of the vera-ray. Probably,
in his business, he never traveled without one.

He gave Lyllin the shocker that Tauncer had dropped. "Watch them. Back
in a moment."

He went out and rapidly, carefully, searched the grounds of the old
farmhouse. He found the sonic device squatting heavily behind a bush.
He stood by it for some moments, perfectly still, listening, but there
was no sound except the faint stirring of the breeze. There did not
seem to be anyone else around. Tauncer and the Earthman must have
come alone. Kirk frowned. He picked up the sonic device and stood
for a second longer, uneasy but baffled. There was no sign of an
air-car. They must have landed far back in the woods to avoid betraying
themselves by the noise of the motors. But he could not search the
whole woods, not tonight.

He went back to the house.

"They're coming around," said Lyllin. She was sitting in a chair in
front of the two bound men, watching them. She rocked back and forth in
a rhythmic motion, making the old floorboards squeak. "Look," she said,
in a voice just a little too high, "I found out what this queer chair
is for. It's rather pleasant."

"I don't find it so," said Tauncer suddenly. "The creaking irritates
me." He opened his eyes, and Kirk had the feeling that he had been
keeping them closed for some time, shamming, while he took stock of the
situation.

"Well," he said to Kirk. "I'm an acknowledged expert with the
sono-beam. Would you mind telling me how you did it?"

Kirk said, "We had warning--a friend of mine named Tom." He motioned
Lyllin to get up. "Go on in the other room, dear. I don't think you'd
enjoy this."

She looked at him as though he was someone she had just met and was not
sure she liked.

"Try to understand," he said. "I don't do this sort of thing every day.
It's hardly ever necessary."

"Of course," she said. She went into the next room, and he shut the
door behind her. Then he sat down in the rocking chair, with the
shocker held ready in his hand.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kirk looked at Tauncer. "I'm a peaceful man," he said, "visiting my
ancestral home. What did you want with me?"

Tauncer smiled. There was something about him that made Kirk more and
more uneasy--a lack of concern, a deep-based confidence that didn't fit
a man in his position.

Tauncer said gently, "You are the Commander of the Fifth Squadron, Lyra
Sector, awaiting orders from your Governor. You are wasting your time."

Kirk's nerves tightened painfully, but he kept his face impassive. "Go
on," he said. "I'm listening."

"Ferdias' agent was supposed to meet you here secretly with
certain--information." Tauncer spoke with deliberate clarity, as one
who explains some problem to a child. "He is not coming. We've known
who he is, for some time. And I got to him, before he ever left New
York." He nodded to the vera-ray projector across the room. "I used
that extremely useful invention on him, and of course he told me all
about this place and how he was supposed to meet you here. So I came
instead."

Kirk looked at the vera-ray himself, but Tauncer shook his head. "It
wouldn't do you any good. The particular piece of information you
need--namely, when and where to move--is not known to me, and your
contact man had not received it yet either. When it does come through,
one of our men will get it--probably already have."

Tauncer's eyes looked up brightly at Kirk, the eyes of the adroit and
wily man measuring the honest clod for another defeat.

"You might just as well free me, Kirk. It was a good try, but your
cause is hopeless now."

"Not as long as I'm on my feet," said Kirk, getting up. He was a very
angry man. "Not as long as the Fifth will follow me. If I don't get
orders, I'll make my own."

"No," said a familiar voice behind him. "The Fifth isn't going
anywhere, Commander."

Kirk whirled around.

Joe Garstang was standing in the front door. He had a shocker in his
hand, pointing with rocklike steadiness at Kirk's breast.

"Drop your weapon," said Garstang.

A red haze swept over Kirk's vision. Through it he saw Garstang,
wavering and distorted. Blood hammered in his temples. "You," he said,
so choked with rage at this enormity that he could hardly form the
words. "My own captain. My friend. Traitor. Working for him--"

Distant and strange in the red mist, Garstang's face became twisted as
though with pain.

"I'm sorry," he said, and fired.

Kirk fell onto the floor. Garstang must have pressed the stud back
to a light charge, because Kirk was still conscious and only partly
paralyzed. His own weapon dropped out of his nerveless fingers.

Garstang came and kicked it away. Kirk flopped around like a gaffed
fish, trying to get his reflexes working again. He heard the inner door
open, and then Lyllin screamed, partly in fear but mostly in fury,
a purely animal sound. She went for Garstang, ignoring his shocker,
with a single-minded intent to kill. Her own hands were empty. She was
content with them.

Garstang dropped his weapon in his pocket and caught her, holding her
hands away from his face and eyes.

"Please," he said. "Please, Lyllin. He's not dead, he's not even hurt."
He turned to Kirk. "You should have dropped your shocker. I told you."
There was a fresh onslaught, and a red line sprang out on Garstang's
cheek. It began to drip slowly, small bright drops against the leathery
brown. "Kirk, for God's sake call her off," he said.

Kirk managed to sit up. He mumbled, shook his head two or three times,
and finally the words were intelligible. "I'm all right. Come here,
Lyllin. Help me up."

She relaxed then, dropping her hands. Garstang let her go. She hissed
at him in furious Vegan and then ran to Kirk. "I should have used that
weapon," she said. "I should have killed him. I forgot it. I'm sorry."
She began to struggle, trying to lift him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Garstang went immediately into the next room. Through the open door
Kirk saw him look around and then pocket the shocker that Lyllin had
laid down and forgotten. Lyllin didn't notice, and he said nothing.
What was the use?

"Push that chair over here," Kirk said. "Now don't worry, this'll wear
off. I'll be all right in just a few minutes. Yes. That's it."

He sat in the rocker, rubbing his numb right arm with his left, trying
to stamp his foot, but he couldn't move it yet. He glared up at
Garstang, who had come and was standing near Tauncer, looking from him
to Kirk with a faint frown.

Tauncer had not spoken, and he did not speak now. He sat where he was
and waited, and watched them.

"Well," said Kirk, "what are you waiting for, Joe? Go ahead and untie
him."

"No," said Garstang, shaking his head slowly. "No, I'm not going to
untie him."

"Why not?" demanded Kirk bitterly. "Or have you decided to double-cross
him, too?"

"I don't think you understand," said Garstang. "I'm not working with
Tauncer. I'm not working for Solleremos at all."

Kirk stared, for a moment surprised out of his rage. "But then who--"

"My loyalty," said Garstang, "is to Earth."

"Oh, hell, that doesn't make sense," said Kirk. "You're no more
Earthman than I am--"

"I am, Kirk. You never knew it, but I'm all Earthman. And I've been in
Earth Intelligence for fourteen years."

Garstang went on slowly. "Earth may be old and partly helpless, but she
is not so blind as to let five powerful hungry Governors go unwatched.
We've seen this grab coming for a long time. The only thing we didn't
know, and couldn't find out, was which one of the five would try it
first. But now I think we know."

"What do you think you know?" said Kirk.

Garstang looked at him steadily. "Ferdias was the only Governor who
sent a squadron to Earth, for the Commemoration. Why?"

Kirk cried, "To protect Earth from Solleremos! It's Orion who's going
to try the grab!"

"I thought you'd say that, Kirk. Maybe you believe it. But ask
yourself--if that's so, why didn't Ferdias warn us openly? Why did he
have you sneak off to this undercover rendezvous?"

Garstang shook his head. "No, Kirk. I think you're an honest man. And I
think you've been had. I think you've been had all the way."




                              CHAPTER VII


Kirk began to laugh. He laughed until tears of rage and desperation
stood in his eyes.

"Christ," he said, "If Earth agents are all as bright as you are, Joe,
God help her."

He pointed to Tauncer. "Allow me to introduce you. This is Tauncer,
Solleremos' right-hand man."

Garstang nodded. "I know."

"I've just fought him off, and now I have to fight you. A fine thing.
A damn fine thing. Listen, Joe. The Fifth was sent here by Ferdias to
protect Earth. Solleremos will attack--"

"When?" asked Garstang.

"I don't know. Ferdias' agent was supposed to meet me here and give me
final orders. Tauncer has taken care of that. Why do you suppose he did
that? Why do you suppose he came here and attacked me? He--"

Garstang turned to Tauncer. "Yes," he said. "Why did you?"

Tauncer said quietly, "You were perfectly right, Garstang. Ferdias
_has_ been planning to grab Earth. We knew that, in Orion. We had
to know when and how Ferdias would do it--and it was my mission to
find out. I was trying, there in the cluster. I tried here, but the
Commander was too much on guard."

"You're lying," said Kirk between his teeth. "Not two minutes ago you
were telling me I couldn't stop Solleremos from taking over Earth.
Lyllin, you heard it--"

Lyllin whispered, "I am sorry--but you sent me away from the room.
Remember?"

Tauncer turned to the Earthman. "Harper will tell you I'm not lying.
You heard every word, didn't you, Harper?"

The Earthman wrinkled his seamy cheeks and said in a tone of ringing
honesty, "I sure did."

Kirk was not yet able to stand up and kill him, or Tauncer, so he shut
his jaws tight and tried to think. I mustn't be drawn into a verbal
slanging match, he thought. That's what Tauncer wants. The more I yell
and swear the worse I look. What must I do? Something. Something....

"--so we're going to act suddenly to disarm the Fifth Squadron,"
Garstang was saying. "Charteris has been suspicious from the first, and
what I told him there last night made him more so. And--"

"Disarm the squadron?" cried Kirk. "Are you insane?" He had a sudden
nightmare vision of the Orion ships sweeping in, of the cruisers and
transports of the Fifth disappearing in a storm of smoke and fire, the
men falling like dead leaves.

"We can't take any chances," Garstang said, moving toward the phone.
"The Earth Navy--"

"Ha!"

"The Earth Navy," repeated Garstang, "is on full alert right now."

"Solleremos will eat it up," said Kirk savagely. "Don't be a fool,
Garstang. I don't care how loyal you are to Earth, you've got to admit
her navy can't face Orion Squadrons for five minutes."

Garstang hesitated. His face was grim and sad, and Kirk felt sorry for
him in spite of his anger. Garstang said, "We'll have to do what we
can. We'll fight enemies if they come, but we'll make sure first we
don't get stabbed in the back."

He picked up the phone. A gleam of satisfaction crossed Tauncer's face.
Kirk saw it, and suddenly the inspiration came to him.

       *       *       *       *       *

He exclaimed, "I've been an idiot! Listen, Joe--put that phone down. I
can prove what I said in three minutes. If I don't--then go ahead and
call."

Garstang looked at him, frowning.

Tauncer said, with the first edge of tension his voice had yet shown,
"Go ahead, Garstang, don't let him make a fool of you."

Kirk said, "Shut up." He rose and hobbled over to the vera-ray
projector. "Help me set this up, Joe. Tauncer used it on Ferdias'
agent, and he was going to use it on me. Now let's see what it'll get
out of _him_."

Garstang came over. "A vera-ray? Why didn't you mention it before?"

"I was too damn mad to think straight," said Kirk.

They set it up, and Tauncer watched them, not speaking, yet still the
look of apprehension in his eyes was tempered with some underlying
confidence. He seemed to be thinking, very hard.

Garstang got the projector going. Harper, the seamy Earthman, winced
away from Tauncer as far as he could get. Behind the projector Kirk
could not feel anything, but Tauncer's face was briefly agonized, and
then it went slack and his eyes lost their keen brilliance, becoming
vague and unfocused.

"Tauncer," said Garstang. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Is Solleremos planning to take Earth into his Sector?"

Some dim vestige of a censor barrier seemed still to survive in
Tauncer's mind, because there was a long delay and Garstang asked the
question again, more sharply. But when the answer came it was clear
enough.

"Yes."

Kirk looked at Garstang, and Garstang's cheeks reddened. Lyllin said
triumphantly, "You see?"

"All right," said Garstang, and turned again to Tauncer.

"How will he do it?"

"Direct attack. The Earth naval forces are negligible. Lyra Squadron
will be caught on the ground, disorganized by absence of command."

"Absence of command," said Kirk slowly. A sudden alarm came into his
face. "You were going to keep me from returning to the squadron."

"Yes."

"But not here at this farm. Too many people knew where I was.
Charteris, folk in the town--"

"Oh, no," said Tauncer, "not here. Fast scout. The ship that brought me
to Earth ahead of your squadron. It's been waiting out beyond radar
range. It will take us all off."

Now, thought Kirk, I know why he's been so confident. He's been
planning for time. "You sent word to the scout-ship?"

"Yes," said Tauncer. "On the porto, right after I beamed your house. I
was sure you'd be unconscious."

Over Kirk's shoulder, Garstang said sharply, "When will it land?"

Tauncer made a vague movement as though trying to get his arm around
where he could see his chrono. Garstang said, "It's exactly two minutes
after eleven, Earth time."

Tauncer's lips moved. "Before midnight," he said. "Soon."

He seemed, dazed as he was, to be smiling.

Garstang said to Kirk, "You've got to get out of here, and fast!" He
started to turn hurriedly away, as though to hustle him and Lyllin out
of the house at once, but Kirk said, "No, wait, let me think."

He spoke to Tauncer. "You don't know exactly where Solleremos'
squadrons are, or exactly when they'll strike."

"No."

"But there must be a signal, some word they're waiting for."

"Yes," said Tauncer. "When the scout takes us off, that will be the
signal. Means we've got Commander. Means Lyra Squadron confused."

Garstang tugged at Kirk. "Come on."

"But," said Kirk to Tauncer, "suppose the scout doesn't find anybody
here."

"All the same. They'll know I've failed, and plan may be known. So
order will be to strike like lightning before defensive measures taken."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kirk shut off the projector. He bent over Tauncer. "Get up," he said.
"Joe! Give me a hand." They got Tauncer wobbling to his feet. "Put him
in the ground car and take him back to Charteris. Try and convince
Charteris to let the Fifth go on battle-alert. Every minute may
count--if we're caught on the ground, we're sunk."

"Kirk--"

"Don't argue. If anything happens to me, Larned is to take over and
cooperate fully with Admiral Laney. You--"

"What do you mean, if anything happens, you're coming too."

"No."

They wrestled Tauncer down the front steps.

"But the scout--"

"That's just it. You heard what he said. The scout must _not_ take off
again."

"So what are you going to do?" asked Garstang. "Stand and hold it with
your bare hands? We can't possibly get any help from New York in time."

"Yeah," said Kirk. "So I'm going to try to get help right here."

"From these people?"

"Haven't you heard?" said Kirk. "I'm a local boy."

"So if you get it? A bunch of farmers. Even if they'll listen to you,
which they probably won't--"

They shoved Tauncer into the car. "Better tie his feet too," said Kirk.
"Lyllin! Lyllin, you're going with Joe."

"No," she said from the porch. "I am not."

"But you can't stay here!"

"If you are going to get yourself killed here, I stay!"

She was determined to make a fight about it, and Kirk had no time right
then. "All right," he said. "I guess you'll be safe enough with the
Vinsons." He slammed the door after Garstang. "Get going."

Garstang swore but he roared the ground car out in a cloud of dust and
gravel. Kirk ran back into the house. Most of the feeling had come
back in his side, and he could move pretty fast. The Earthman, Harper,
was squirming around the floor trying to get free. Kirk gave him one
ruthless blast with the sono-beam that would put him to sleep for a day
or so. He could be dealt with later, when more important things were
out of the way. Then he got on the phone and called Vinson.

A sleepy voice answered. "I was just going to bed. What do you want?"

"When you have an emergency around here," said Kirk, "what do you do to
get help in a hurry?"

Vinson's voice waked up. "Why, I phone around fast. The boys turn out
quick for fire, flood or whatever. Hey, you got a fire, Commander?"

"Worse," said Kirk. "Do your people have guns of some kind?"

"Sure, nearly every farm has a hunting-shocker. But--"

"Tell 'em to come armed, and come fast. Your place. My wife and I are
coming now."

"Say Commander, is this a joke or what?"

"It's the unfunniest joke ever to hit Earth," Kirk said grimly. "Call
them!"

He slammed the phone down, grabbed Lyllin by the hand, and lit out,
full tilt down the path and into the moonlit road.

       *       *       *       *       *

By the time they reached Vinson's house, all the lights were on and
Vinson himself was standing in the road, waiting for them.

"I hope you know what you're doing," he said to Kirk worriedly. "The
boys don't like getting hauled out for nothing. What's up?"

Kirk told him, rapidly, between gasps, as he helped Lyllin up on the
porch. Mrs. Vinson, a pleasant-looking dark-haired woman in a pink
robe, cried out from the doorway and took Lyllin's hand to welcome her
in.

"What on earth is going on?" she demanded. "Why, you poor thing, he's
run the legs off you! Come in, sit down--" Then she caught sight of
Vinson's face. "What is it?" she asked quietly. "Tell me, so I'll know
what to do."

"There's going to be a fight," said Vinson, in a wondering,
half-incredulous tone. "There's a war going to start, and the first
fight is going to be right here, in Orville."

"In the woods," said Kirk hastily, pointing. "You'll be quite safe
here. And if we can take them by surprise, there won't even be a
skirmish."

"He says that the fate of Earth depends on us," said Vinson, still in
that wondering tone. "Well. I'm damned. What do you know!"

A car roared up outside. Another followed it, and then others at
irregular intervals. Pretty soon Vinson's yard and porch were crowded
with men carrying hunting-shockers. They looked at Vinson, and at
Kirk, curious, doubtful, not exactly hostile but in no mood to be
hurried into anything they didn't understand. Kirk glanced up at the
sky and groaned. Then he spoke, as rapidly and forcefully as he could.

"So that's the picture," he finished. "If that Orion scout takes off
again after it lands, your Earth may be a different place tomorrow. We
can stop it--if you will."

He wailed. There was no reaction at all for a moment, the leathery
faces looking silently at him. Then one man said,

"If people come bothering us, we'll bother them back--plenty. But we
don't need any stranger telling us what to do."

Kirk's heart sank. The cursed Earth mulishness was going to defeat him,
after all.

Vinson said loudly, "What do you mean, stranger! This is one of the old
Orville Kirks. _He's_ no stranger. It's strangers that he wants us to
help slap down."

They thought that over for a moment, and again Kirk looked up at the
sky. It must be very close now. In minutes, maybe, it would drop down,
and there would be nothing at all to stop it from going away again and
giving the signal. And these stolid farmers....

The one who had spoken peered bleakly at Kirk, and said, "Well. Like I
said, we don't want strangers interfering with us. Do we, boys?"

The men nodded assent, and stalked toward their cars. Kirk turned away,
defeated and furious. He'd have to try by himself--

Motors roared to life, and the cars started to go by him. A big red
truck paused beside him, and Vinson reached down from it to haul him
aboard.

"What are you standin' there for?" he cried to Kirk. "You said it might
come any minute!"

Kirk, a little dazedly, scrambled up into the truck beside him. "You
mean they're going back with me--"

"What did you think? Like Fred said, no blasted strangers from away
outside are going to come sneaking in here!"

The truck roared away down the moonlit road, following the speeding
cars back the way Kirk had come, waking hurrying echoes, raising a
great cloud of dust to redden the moon.

Kirk thought, "I'll never understand these damned Earthmen--never!"




                             CHAPTER VIII


At three minutes and fourteen seconds before midnight a small, fast
spacecraft with the insigne of the striding warrior on her bows dropped
down out of the sky and landed in the brush-grown meadow at the edge
of the Kirk woods. There was nothing anywhere in sight around it but
the dark quiet mass of the trees, the patches of bramble and pale white
blossoms of the Queen Anne's Lace. Across the meadow was the Kirk
house, with a single lamp burning in it.

A hatch opened and a party of men came out, climbing down a collapsible
ladder. There were fifteen of them, armed. They stood still, looking
around and listening. Then they began to move toward the house,
scrambling and stumbling among the briars and the tufts of bunch-grass,
fanned out like skirmishers.

Kirk, lying behind a hazel bush in the fringe of the woods, waved one
hand slowly in an outward arc, and there were several small rustlings
in the brush to his left. He waited, feeling tense and prickly all
over, sweating heavily, though the night was cooler now. He counted,
slowly and carefully, moving his lips. Held tight in the crook of his
arm was the heavy sono-beam device, snatched up from the house as they
came past it. Vinson was beside him, and among the trees nearby were
eight more men, waiting for Kirk's signal. Kirk could not see Vinson's
face in the dark, but he could hear his breathing, quick and excited.
He leaned his head close to the Earthman's, and whispered,

"Remember, keep down out of the way until you see me go in."

He raised up cautiously.

"All right. Now."

He began to creep rapidly toward the slash of light from the
scout-ship's open hatch. The others came behind him. He was not used to
this sort of stalking, and he made more noise than the other nine put
together. He hoped no one would hear it.

From the direction of the house there came a sudden crackling of
shocker-beams. Kirk flung himself forward, over the last few feet.
Secrecy was a lost hope now, and all that mattered was getting the
sono-beam projector into the open hatchway. The bloody thing weighed
a ton when you carried it, but its heft was only relative. Against
armor-plate and the strong double-hull of a space-ship it would be no
more effective than a bullroarer.

There was a guard of two in the hatchway. They sprang to the lip of
the opening, staring toward the house, their shockers lifted. Kirk
yelled, "Get 'em!" Vinson and a man on the other side of him fired
almost together. The guards came tumbling forward onto the ground. Kirk
dodged between them and set the sono-projector on the edge of the hatch
floor. He had to reach high to do it. The others, following his orders,
were hugging the curve of the hull on either side of the ladder. Kirk
slammed the stud full charge and wide open.

"They're coming back this way!" yelled Vinson. He was looking toward
the house. Kirk craned his neck.

The shocker-flashes flickered like heat-lightning in the night. They
moved back toward the ship--probably the fifteen men, or what was left
of them, were retreating from the Orville men whom Kirk had stationed
in the house and yard.

He said desperately, "Stop them, damn it, can't you stop them?" The
sono-beam projector was sliding out of his hands, walking itself with
its own vibration across the smooth-worn metal. He had to turn to hold
it.

       *       *       *       *       *

Inside the ship there was bedlam going on, a sound of things breaking
and men's voices raised in inarticulate cries. A tall gray-haired man
with a captain's stars on his shoulder-tabs came at a staggering run
into the passage and dropped, and lay still. His hands quivered with
the jarring of the floor.

Kirk shut off the projector and threw it away. He went up the ladder,
and at the top he paused a second to look at what was happening in the
meadow. The Orville men who had gone in behind the invaders had risen
out of the brush. Their shockers flared in a line of ragged light amid
the brambles and the white flowers. Then there was darkness and a
sudden peace.

"Come on!" Kirk shouted, his voice carrying far across the meadow. Then
he ran down the passage, with Vinson and the other eight pounding at
his heels. The gray-haired captain did not move as they went by.

And it was almost easy. Seven, eight, nine, of the crew lay sprawled
in the main passage or in doorways opening from it, unconscious.
The communications man was still making vague pawing motions at his
dials, but the motions were only reflex and the equipment was jarred
to fragments of splintered glass and plastic. In the small, compact
bridge, best protected by intervening bulkheads, the two junior
officers and three crewmen were still conscious but too dazed to offer
resistance.

"Well," said Vinson, breathing hard, his eyes shining. "We did all
right."

"We did fine," said Kirk, grinning. The other eight grinned, too,
nodding their heads at each other and at him. They had fought together
and won together, and now they were all comrades, men of Orville, men
of Earth. It was a good feeling, Kirk discovered. A very good feeling.

Some of the men came in from the meadow. The fifteen from the scout
were all taken. The Orville men had suffered some casualties in the way
of burns and shock, but no fatalities.

"Good," said Kirk. He looked at the Orionids. "Where can we put 'em for
safekeeping?"

Vinson said, "The local jail is pretty small, but I guess we could pack
them in."

"It won't be for long," said Kirk. "The high brass will take them off
your hands in a hurry."

"We'll see to it," said Vinson. "I guess you'll want to call New York.
And don't worry about the women, I'll stop by the house and let them
know we're okay."

"Thanks," said Kirk. He went out across the meadow to the house, and
put in his call to Charteris.

After that things happened with desperate speed. A fleet of air-cars
descended on Orville and the Kirk house. Charteris was with them. He
inspected the Orion scout, conferred briefly with his aides, and then
spoke to Kirk.

"I suppose I should apologize, Commander," he said, rather stiffly,
"but I'm not going to. In our position we have no choice but to suspect
any force too strong for us to deal with easily."

"I don't care about anything," said Kirk, "except to get my squadron
off the ground before Orion strikes."

Charteris nodded. "Your squadron is being fitted for action now. I
suggest we return to New York at once to confer with Admiral Laney and
decide strategy."

       *       *       *       *       *

The next few hours were hectic ones. Orders, preparations,
requisitions, arguments. And Kirk found himself up against a totally
unexpected stumbling-block--the stiff-necked, stubborn pride of Earth.

"We recognize perfectly," Admiral Laney said frostily, "our position as
a fifth-rate naval power, but we have never yet run from battle and we
don't intend to start doing it now."

"But against Orion Sector's two crack squadrons--"

"We're grateful for the presence of the Fifth Lyra," said Laney, "but
our own ships will bear the brunt of the attack."

"Sir," said Kirk, and he meant it, "I would be proud to fight under
you. But facts are facts. I think you understand that the Fifth Lyra
has a certain pride too. But we're not going to bear the brunt of any
attack where we know in advance we're outnumbered two to one. In short,
if you meet Solleremos head on, you meet him alone."

"Now here," he went on, turning to the huge depth-chart of the Solar
System, "was my thought. We know from the vera-ray examination of the
captain of that Orion scout, that the scout's take-off was literally to
be the signal for the attack. They didn't dare risk a radio message,
even in code, that might be intercepted. So the course of take-off,
on the exact coordinates of the hidden fleet, was to serve as a
message. They could spot this by ultra-wave scanner, using relays at
previously-arranged points in deep space. So, we have the coordinates--"

He wrote them down on the chart.

"Carried to point of convergence, that would put the Orion fleet about
there--far off this chart, of course, but roughly south-east of the
star Saiph. They will presumably attack along this line--" He drew one,
bold and red, a dagger pointed at Earth's heart.

"Roughly nadir-point zero six, from our viewpoint," said Laney. "Well?"

"Here," said Kirk, "you seem to have a natural sort of
chevaux-de-frise, to borrow an ancient term."

He pointed to a blurred and speckled area lying between Mars and
Jupiter.

"The Asteroid Belt," said Laney. "Yes. We know our way around in it,
but anyone else would find it hard going." His eyes brightened. "Plenty
of places for ambush. Yes, I see what you're driving at. If we could
entangle their superior forces in the drift--"

"Exactly. Bait them in there, harry them all you can. Now, then.
They'll be expecting to catch the Fifth Lyra on the ground. As far as
they know, Tauncer succeeded and all is well. So perhaps they won't be
too watchful. We'll be up here hiding above the Sun, screened by it
from their radar. When you have them hooked--"

He made a downward slashing motion with his hand.

"That suits me," said Laney. He shook hands with Kirk solemnly. Then he
turned to Charteris and the others who were gathered with anxious face?
in the conference room. "I think we may as well get started."

Charteris sighed. He picked up the intercom and spoke into it briefly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Northward, the fields around Orville were brightening with a new day.
In the meadow behind the Kirk house the briars and the Queen Anne's
Lace were beaten down by the passage of men and trucks. They were all
gone now except for one truck with massive electronic equipment, pulled
back to a safe distance from the Orion scout. The necessary changes
had been made in the ship's control system. Now the crew of the truck
waited for a signal from the house.

It came.

The truck crew went to work, activating the remote-control relays,
setting up a locked-in series of coordinates. Then the firing key was
pressed.

With every semblance of life, the Orion scout took off on its destined
course--a Judas goat, empty and silent, with no living thing inside its
hull.

Standing on the steps of the Vinson's house, Lyllin watched it rise and
vanish in the blue air. She had had one short call from Kirk. _Wait
there. I'll come back._ Now the small dying thunder of the scout-ship's
flight seemed like the receding footsteps of everything she had ever
loved, passing over the distant hills.

She turned slowly and went back into the house.




                              CHAPTER IX


The sky screamed light, beneath them. The Sun, its atoms ceaselessly
riven and then reborn, shrieked raving energy, magnetism, electricity,
light, radiant heat, a rage across the heavens, a cosmic storm flinging
up wild plumes and spindrift of violet calcium, of yellow sodium, of
blue and red and purple.

Over it, as over a limitless fiery ocean, hung the shoal of silver
ships. Tossed and twitched by storms of radiation, wrenched by the
mighty claws of the titan magnetic field, scorched by the blaze of the
star, they fought to hold position. Their formation wavered, sagged,
re-formed and wavered again, and still they held together.

On the bridge of the _Starsong_, clutching a stanchion as the deck
heeled and shuddered under him, Kirk stood with Garstang watching the
screens.

"Not a sign!" said Garstang in his ear. "And we can't sit up here
forever!"

The rim of the Asteroid Belt showed on one screen, a jagged wheeling
of rock fragments, dust and pebbles and little naked worlds, black
on their shadow-sides flashing like heliographs where they caught
the light. Beyond them was space, very deep, very dark, very empty,
looking toward Orion and his pendant sword.

In that deep emptiness out there, five ships moved slowly. Earth ships,
behaving like a normal patrol. The remainder of Earth's fleet was
hidden among the asteroids. Even the searching rays that fed the screen
could not see them.

Suddenly Garstang caught Kirk's shoulder. "There!" he said. He leaned
forward and pointed his blunt forefinger at the screen.

Out of the depths toward the star Saiph came a swarm of tiny flecks
that might have been nothing more than bits of cosmic drift, except
that they moved together and very fast. They swept in toward the Solar
System with a gathering rush, growing, picking up the sunlight on their
polished sides. Two full squadrons of Solleremos' fleet, on planetary
approach.

The five Earth ships out there wheeled in perfect formation and went on
out to meet them.

Kirk's mouth was dry. Runnels of sweat crept down his temples, down his
body. The palms of his hands were clammy.

"Screen's gone again," he said, and swore.

The screens blazed useless white, even the powerful rays that served
them wrenched and cut by an outburst of solar electricity. Then they
cleared again.

The Earth ships had not gone far out. Suddenly they wheeled again,
abandoning formation now. Spurts of light came from their launching
tubes in quick rotation, each ship firing as she bore on the target.
Then they cracked on speed and ran for the Belt.

One of the Orionid cruisers burst into a great flame and was gone.

Garstang shouted, and as though at a signal the screen went out again.

Kirk ran his uniform sleeve over his face, and kept still. There were
so few of the Earth ships, and so many of the others, something more
than double the strength of his own squadron. Far below, Earth lay
naked, stripped, utterly without defense. Kirk thought of Lyllin, and
the Vinson house with the dusty road in front of it. He thought of the
woods and the meadow where they had fought in the night, and curiously
enough he thought of the cat. Insolent little beast....

He waited for the screen to clear, and watched.

A number of Orion ships detached themselves from the main fleet and
raced after the Earth ships. They were much faster. The long aim of
Solleremos was reaching swiftly now, and one of the Earth cruisers
winked out with a brave, brief burst of flame. The other four reached
the Belt.

The Orionids plunged in after them.

"Now," whispered Garstang. "Now, now--"

       *       *       *       *       *

The eight Orionid cruisers, apparently detailed to mop up this patrol,
sped down a deceptively open "lead" through the asteroid drift. The
scanner beams swung to a better angle to follow them, and now the
screen showed a closer view of that stony wilderness. The Earth ships
had vanished. The lead pinched out in a cul-de-sac of wildly gyrating
rocks. The Orion cruisers did a fast-about, practically on each others'
heels, but before they were finished the four Earth ships and half a
dozen others appeared from nowhere, all around them.

"Hit them," muttered Garstang. "Oh, hell, get onto it and _hit_ them!"

They hit them. There was a quick holocaust of light-bursts and the
Orionid cruisers in there were gone.

"That hurt them," said Garstang. "They're hooked--"

He turned and looked at Kirk. Kirk lifted his hand, his body bent
slightly forward, his eyes intent upon the screen.

Out there in the Asteroid Belt, the trap was sprung. And now the
Orionids knew they had the whole Earth fleet, such as it was, to deal
with--a force too small to stop them, but too formidable to leave on
their flank and rear. The squadrons altered course, curving in a long
bow-shaped line toward the Earth ships that hovered, in apparent doubt,
above the fringes of the drift.

Kirk brought his hand down in a slashing gesture. "_Now!_"

The Fifth Lyra swooped out of the sun.

Now.

Now is the moment, the one right time, there will not be another.
Either you make it or you don't. Outnumbered, outmanned, and outgunned
the element of surprise is all you've got.

The Sun falls behind, the edge of the Belt shifts and tilts and swings
as you cut the plane of the ecliptic. Out of the furnace into the fire,
at full drive.

The long line of the Orion ships is very beautiful, strung against the
glittering emptiness of space.

The _Starsong_ groans and quivers like a living thing. You can hear the
beating of her heart, the pounding throb of power pushed to the limit,
and beyond. Garstang, in the captain's place, has a face of iron, dark
and still. Sweat shines on the edges of it. The men are quiet.

The Commander is afraid.

Ships, lives, men, a planet. Who would say _Now!_ and not be afraid?

The Orion fleet springs at the viewports. The ships grow large, the
intervals between them widen out. The _Starsong_ flies at the point
of a wedge shaped like an axe-blade. Behind her, on either side, the
squadron follows in close formation.

In a tight, flat voice, the Commander says, "Prepare to engage."

The Fifth Lyra, the falling wedge, the axe-blade, hits the line of
cruisers from above and cuts it in two.

Instantly the close-held wings fan out, driving the severed sections
apart, opening the gap so wide it can never be closed again. Shells
burst, little blinding suns, little fountains of hellfire, racking the
ships, burning them, destroying them. But the wings sweep on. Part of
the Orionid line is rolled up and driven into the drift of the Belt,
where the Earth ships strike and strike again, and the proud cruisers
with the polished sides become wreck and flotsam to join the cosmic
debris in its endless journey around the Sun. The other section is
driven outward into space, back toward Orion.

And the _Starsong_ hunts down the _Betelgeuse_, flagship of Solleremos'
fleet.

Kirk says, If we can get her, I think the rest will all go home. Fire
One--

_Fire Two._

The _Betelgeuse_ answers, and space is drowned in a flaming cloud. The
_Starsong_ staggers and men are thrown down on the reeling iron deck.
A red light flares on the telltale board. Somewhere deep in the ship's
vitals the bulkhead doors slam shut, sealing off. The _Starsong_ has a
hole in her and some men have died, but she's still alive, still strong
to move and strike.

_Fire Three._

The _Betelgeuse_ dives clear and her own tubes spout hellfire, a double
flowering of death and destruction. The _Starsong_ wrenches away,
desperate, shaken, and once more the ports are filled with fire and a
red light glimmers on the board.

_Fire Four._

The _Betelgeuse_ quivers strangely. With a dreamlike slowness two
pieces of her appear out of the brilliance and the flame, bow and stern
at odds with each other, going different ways. Then there is a white
blinding flash, and she is gone.

And the Orion fleet, leaderless, surprised, mauled and clawed and
wounded, is pulling out. One by one, in pairs, in little groups, they
turn tail and streak for open space, and are gone.

The Fifth Lyra and the ships of Earth follow them, but not far. Space
is empty, and in the ships there is a great silence, while the men
breathe softly and look at nothing and feel that they are still alive.
There is no light now but the light of the Sun and the distant stars.
The Belt wheels on its way, and bits of riven metal that once were
ships fall slowly toward it.

       *       *       *       *       *

After a time, on the bridge of the _Starsong_, Garstang turned to Kirk.
His face was sweating and wild, and his eyes had a dazed look. He said,
"What now?"

"We wait and see what," said Kirk. "Maybe nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Solleremos has missed his spring. I've an idea he may prefer to make
like it all never happened, if we don't give any official news of this
fight. I think Charteris will see it that way."

Charteris did. The battle couldn't be kept secret really, but Earth's
authorities pretended that it had never happened. There was no profit
in starting a full-fledged war, and there wouldn't be one if Solleremos
had learned his lesson.

He had learned it, it seemed. From Orion there was a long silence.
Then came a routine congratulation on the Commemoration. The Governor
of Orion Sector, it appeared, was happy for Earth.

"The so-and-so must be raging, but he won't try _that_ again," said
Kirk.

To him, and to the Squadron, had come another message, from Ferdias.
Well done. That was all. But from Ferdias, it was plenty.

And the Commemoration blazed, on Earth. The lights, the bands, the
speeches, and then the fly-over--the battered mighty giants of the
Fifth roaring across the sky with the even more battered Earth cruisers
leading the way.

From its museum they had brought the first of all the space-ships, and
everyone held their breath and kept fingers crossed while it lurched,
coughed and wobbled up into the sky, and labored bravely around the
planet, and by some miracle came down safe again.

And the great day was over.

Garstang, looking strange now in the black uniform of Earth, spoke
earnestly to Kirk the day before the Fifth was to leave.

"You know you're pretty much a hero here now, Kirk. You'll be retiring
from service in not too many years. Why don't you come back to Earth to
live?"

"Why does everyone say, come _back_ to Earth," Kirk complained. "Just
because I had ancestors here I'm no Earthman!"

He added, "And whatever you do, don't mention that bright idea to
Lyllin! I'm going up to Orville now to get her."

Garstang only smiled at him, a queer sort of smile.

Kirk drove up through the quiet roads, the green countryside. The
golden sun was soft upon his face. The breeze held a faint, smoky tang
of oncoming fall. Earth's fall--he'd heard about that.

Peaceful, beautiful--but it was no world for him! Come "back" to Earth,
indeed! Why, he'd lived on many worlds and none of them had ever got
that kind of sentimental hold on him. Though he could understand why
people felt that way about this old place--

Hell, he must be getting sentimental himself! He put a curb on such
thoughts and drove on. And when he drove into Orville, there were
frantic handwavings from every street-corner, his name was shouted by
the kids along the sidewalks.

       *       *       *       *       *

Vinson came running out of his house to meet him when he pulled up.

"Your wife's over at your house," Vinson explained. He shook hands. He
was vastly excited and proud. "You know what--the village is going to
put up a plaque. With all our names on it. Just saying, 'They fought
the Battle of Orville'. Nothing else, account of diplomacy."

Kirk said, "It deserves the plaque, that fight. If you chaps hadn't
turned out that night--"

"Hear you're leaving tomorrow," Vinson went on. "Thought I'd keep your
old place going better, while you're gone, by working the fields. I'll
keep an eye on your house, too."

Kirk said, "What makes you think I'm coming back?"

Vinson said, puzzledly, "Why, you are, aren't you? I mean--you're an
Orville boy--this is your real home--"

Kirk suppressed the impatient words he'd been about to utter. No use
upsetting a nice guy. He said, "Oh, sure, I'll be back--"

He drove on to the old house. Lyllin sat on the porch. He saw, to his
surprise, that on her lap there cozily reclined a large black cat.

Lyllin smiled. "I think I've been accepted. By the people here--and by
Tom."

Tom yawned and looked with insolent green eyes at Kirk. "His sides are
bulging," Kirk said. "You've been bribing the beggar with food."

She laughed. "I don't know how he'll like space-travel. But we'll be
bringing him back some day."

"Will we?" said Kirk.

She looked up at him. "Joe Garstang was talking to me. You _will_ be
retiring from active service in a few years. And I like it here now,
Kirk. I really do."

He said, loudly, "Why in the world must everyone assume that I _want_
to come back to this place? Will you tell me that?"

"Don't you?"

He started to answer, then didn't. He looked out from the porch of the
old house, at the sunset light sweeping the green valley, at the old
trees beyond the fields, at everything that had somehow got a queer
grip on him without his knowing it.

He said, "Well, I don't know. Maybe."

Lyllin smiled.

That night the Fifth went skyward in a great thundering that rolled
louder and louder across the cities and the countryside. Great black
bulks flying up fast across the glittering sky, roaring, bellowing,
shouting a gigantic farewell down to the watching millions as they
rushed out toward the stars.



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