"I won't keep you in suspense," said Berkt. "After all this argument, the Council has decided to sanction the raid on Chlann, and the clans have pledged in all some seventy ships."
Exultation soared up in Chane. He could almost feel his hands on the Singing Suns.
"But before you get too happy about it," came Berkt's dry voice, "there is a condition attached to the sanction. It was attached by Irrun and his supporters on the Council, otherwise they would veto the raid."
Chane stiffened. "A condition?"
Berkt nodded. "Irrun's nephew Harkann commands the raid. And, as pilot, you go with him in his ship."
"So the Ranroi are not going to let me out of their grasp?" muttered Chane.
A rage grew up in him. Damn the Ranroi and their feuds! He would go with Harkann, but if one of them had to perish, it was going to be Harkann.
XV
A great horn bellowed brazenly across the city Krak. And at that signal, other mighty horns took up the clamor, echoing and re-echoing off the stone walls until the whole city was buffeted by waves of brassy sound.
In long ago days the Varnans had been a fighting race, and the battle horns had sounded when the clans went out against each other. And though centuries had gone by, and though they had become highly sophisticated in the technology of star travel which Earthmen had unwisely taught them, the old custom remained and when a Varnan expedition set forth to raid for loot, the great horns all sounded.
Out from the red stone buildings broke the brilliant flags of the different clans. With cheers and waving of hands, the tall golden people along the streets honored the cars that were filled with fighting men, and that rolled and jolted away in the direction of the starport.
Chane, riding in one of the cars, thought, On Earth, they'd do this for a defending army going forth, but never for a band of pirates going for loot.
But it was the way he remembered it, and the brazen roaring of the great horns sent a hot thrill through him as it always had in the past.
There was a brightness in the eyes of the Varnans riding with him. They might be going to sudden death between the stars, but there would be excitement and fighting and maybe a shipful of rich plunder to bring home, and this was the way a Varnan liked it.
It made Chane think of the very first time he had gone out on a raid, how he had tried to conceal his excitement as the horns bellowed, how he had tried to look cool and haughty and as unexcited as the veterans around him.
To the devil with nostalgia, Chane thought suddenly. Nostalgia will get me killed.
No raid he had ever gone on would be as dangerous for him as this present one, and he had better stop dreaming and keep alert every moment.
The hot golden sunlight poured down on the cars as they rumbled out onto the starport and between the long lines of needle-shaped ships. Beside the ship that was starred with the symbol of the leader, the figure of Harkann towered above a group of captains. Harkann gave Chane an icy look, but did not otherwise greet him.
"You all know where the dropout point will be," he said, and they nodded. Chane had calculated that dropout point, and experts in stellar navigation had confirmed it. Harkann went on, "You know the order and timing in which we'll drop out; you have the full schedule. So there's nothing more to talk about."
The captains went away, all except Harkann and Vengant, who was his second officer. They turned and went into the symbol-starred ship, and Chane followed them.
The ships of the Starwolves were small ones, with a crew of eight to ten each. The fighting men of the ship gave no greeting to Chane. They were all of the Ranroi clan, and knew him. Vengant took the controls, and Harkann and Chane the chairs behind him. They looked out through the broad bridge screen, and nobody said anything.
From far away they could hear the brassy echo of the horns of Krak bidding them farewell and good looting. Then a new sound began.
It was less a sound than a vibration, and it grew until the tarmac under the ship was quivering with it. A deep and awesome thunder, the thunder of the first division of ships as their power units came on.
"Time," said Harkann curtly, and as he spoke, the first division started skyward, with a lightning-bolt sound of splitting atmosphere.
Thirty needle-ships, heading halfway up the zenith. But these were not proud Varnan craft. They were old, corroded, their sides scarred by battles out in distant space from which they had limped home long ago. They had been furnished with enough repairs and power to get them into space again, and had been manned by skeleton crews. They were the expendables, the sacrifice to deceive the Qajars. With them went five sound ships to take off the skeleton crews when the moment came.
The roaring thunder of their takeoffs died away, and Harkann sat silently watching the chronometer. Finally he said into the communicator, "Second Division, five minutes to offworld."
The chair in which Chane sat began to quiver as the power units back in the stern compartment began their muted roar. The five minutes went by.
An explosion of power hurled the ship skyward, and smashed Chane deep into his chair. His guts contracted agonizedly, and he felt his vision darkening as an unseen fist battered his head, and he thought startledly, I've been too long away from Varna; I can't take this many gravs now!
Then his belly muscles tightened up, and his vision cleared, and he knew that he had not lost the strength that the painful years of childhood on Varna had given him, that he could still endure.
The ship kept rising on an acceleration schedule that would have paralyzed an Earthman. That was why the Starwolves were so hard to beat in space. The heavy gravitation of massive Varna had bred into them a strength and resistance that made them able to take G's which no other spacegoing race in the galaxy could take.
Chane took it, and liked it. This was the speed at which he had been used to traveling in space until the time he forsook Varna. The slow speeds of the Merc ships had sometimes seemed intolerably sluggish to him.
They went away fast from Varna. Out in the brilliant sunglare, on either side of the flagship and behind it, shone bright, winking little points of light that were the other ships of the squadron. Starwolf forces kept tighter formations than ordinary men could dare, since they could if necessary alter course with sudden changes of speed and direction that would crush the guts out of an Earthman.
From the golden glare of Varna's arrogant sun they went out into the blackness and the starshine, driving headlong toward the predetermined drop-in point.
"Time," said Harkann, and Vengant hit the controls and went into overdrive.
The vertiginous feeling of the fall into extra-dimensional space came and went. Without a pause, the ship hurtled on, and all the ships that were behind it.
And still none of the Ranroi had said a word to Chane.
Chane remembered what Berkt had said, before he left Varna. Chane had been saying goodbye to Chroll, who had signed long before for another raid and was not going against the Qajars, and who was unhappy about it.
"Don't feel too badly about not going with Chane," Berkt had grimly advised Chroll. "Wherever Chane is on this job, there's going to be the worst danger."
"You don't mean that the Ranroi will try to kill him out there?" Chroll had exclaimed. "No, they wouldn't.... He has Council right until the raid-squadron returns."
"There's a good many of the Ranroi I don't like, but they're not dishonorable," Berkt said. "They—or most of them— wouldn't break Council right. But there'll be fighting out there, and Harkann can give Chane the most dangerous spot in it without violating his right."
Later, after Chroll had left, Chane had looked at Berkt and had said wryly, "Thanks for the encouragement."
"You know it's true, don't you?" said Berkt, and Chane nodded.
Then Chane hesitated. Something bothered him.
"You've been a good friend to me, Berkt," he said.
Berkt shrugged. "Partly for your father's sake, and Nshurra's."
"I haven't told you
the whole truth," said Chane. "It's not that I've lied about anything, but I omitted a bit of the truth."
Berkt said nothing, waiting.
"The thing I'm after on the world of the Qajars," said Chane. "The one item of treasure which, by the Council terms, I'm permitted to select for myself. Between us, it's the Singing Suns."
Berkt's upslanted eyes opened wide, and a look of incredulity crossed his cruel-planed, haughty face.
"But the Suns were broken up!" he exclaimed. "After Morrul and his clan stole them from Achernar, Morrul sold them to Klloya-Klloy on Mruun, and Klloya-Klloy broke them up and sold them to several buyers."
"The several buyers were all agents of the Qajars," said Chane. "It was their trick to keep down the price of the Suns."
Berkt stared, and then suddenly broke into a burst of homeric laughter.
"That's the damnedest thing I ever heard! Then that's what you and your Merc friends came to the Spur for?"
Chane nodded. "To get the Suns and collect the two million credit reward for them when we return them to Achernar."
"Return them?"
Chane said defensively, "Earthmen are queer fish, Berkt. Even the Mercs, who are pretty tough, won't do anything that's against their particular ideas of honesty. I'll admit it seems pretty foolish to me."
"If Harkann and the others see the Suns, they won't much like your taking them," warned Berkt.
"I know," said Chane grimly. "But the Council agreed that I could take any single treasure-object I wish. And I'm going to do just that ... if we get that far."
"Which is a big if," Berkt said. "Harkann's a good raid leader, whatever else he is. But from what you told me, you're going up against some pretty nasty stuff. Well, good luck!"
Remembering that now as the ship flashed on in overdrive, Chane thought he would need the luck. Now and then he caught the eyes of Harkann, cold and deadly, watching him.
It did not exactly frighten him, but all this inimical silence on the part of everyone began to bore him. When he had finished a trick at the navigation instruments, he went back to the tiny bunk room and stretched out.
He wondered what Dilullo and Bollard and the others were doing, if they still lived. He grinned as he thought what they would say if they could see him now, out with the Starwolves.
Well, the devil with worrying, he thought. I've made my gamble and I'll follow through with it, and there's no use thinking any more about it.
They went on, angling across the whole width of Argo Spur. They stood their tricks, and checked the ship weapons, and ate and slept and watched the simulacrum viewscreen that showed their squadron passing between the nebulae and stars.
A tenseness grew in them as they neared the edge of the Spur. Beyond it the screen indicated empty space, the great ocean that washed the shores of the galaxy.
And out in that space showed the dark cluster that
Chane remembered, the little cluster of many dead suns and worlds in the heart of which the Qajars had their stronghold.
There came a time when Harkann said, "The first division, right now, should be here," putting his finger on the screen on a point two-thirds of the way out to the dark cluster.
Chane was sure that they would be right where Harkann had indicated. They had to be, to make the whole attack plan work.
Starwolves, contrary to general belief in the galaxy, did not rush bullheaded into an attack when they raided. It often looked that way, but actually the dreaded Varnan raiders planned their major raids on a finely-calculated schedule.
It had to be that way for a raid to succeed. The Starwolf squadrons were never very big. Given time, almost any planet they hit could bring up overpowering forces against them. So the Starwolves never gave them that much time. They dropped out of overdrive at the precise right moment, used their unmatchable speed in space to make a lightning swoop, grabbed their loot and went away again as fast as they had come.
Chane felt the familiar feeling of tenseness, excitement and eagerness he had always felt when a raid mission neared its climax.
He thought, Dilullo would be disappointed in me. After all his efforts, I'm still a Starwolf!
When they had approached almost to the edge of the dark cluster, as shown on the simulacrum, Vengant said sharply, "Dropout time for One!"
Harkann, studying the screen, nodded silently. Some distance ahead of them in space, not far from the actual edge of the dark cluster, the fleet of thirty old ships that were to be sacrificed would at this moment be dropping out of overdrive.
Chane could visualize it. The skeleton crews of the old ships, now that they were in normal space, would be swiftly setting the controls on their automatic, prediagramed courses. Then those crews would be picked up by the five sound cruisers that had gone along with Division One for that purpose.
The chronometer showed a figure, and Vengant said, "Time."
"Drop out," said Harkann.
They came out of overdrive next moment, with the dizzying, spinning sensation you never got used to.
On the viewscreen, now that they were in normal space, they could see far to their left the vast coast of the galaxy, sweeping away in cliffs of stars. The tarnished plume of Argo Spur was behind them. Ahead there was only the darkness of space, in which the dark cluster could not yet be seen visually.
But the radar screen showed the little cluster sharp and clear. It showed five blips outside the cluster, the ships that had taken off the skeleton crews. And it showed thirty other blips, racing at highest speed toward the cluster and soon to enter it.
Harkann spoke into the communicator, to the whole squadron.
"Be ready for the signal."
It seemed to Chane, as it had always seemed to him at this penultimate moment before an attack, that as the squadron waited it was quivering to be unleashed.
XVI
The thirty sacrifice ships flew fast toward the dark cluster. The ships were not bunched together, but were spread out in a broad line. The course to be followed through the dark worlds and dead stars of the cluster had been carefully programed for each one of them.
"If your Lethal Worlds exist, we should soon see some evidence of them," Harkan said to Chane.
They peered at the viewscreen, which had now been set to give a close-up view of the cluster.
"Nothing," said Vengant, contemptuously.
Blinding light flashed from the viewscreen as a small, dark planet exploded into a colossal flare. The flare of force engulfed several of the robot Varnan ships, but the others raced on.
"It seems," said Chane, "that the Qajars keep a good watch on their monitors. And that the sight of Varnan ships has upset them."
Another body in the cluster, a big planet that swung far out from its dead and ashen primary, flashed into a parsec-wide flare.
"Seven more of the robots got it," said Vengant. He began to swear. "Who are these crazy people, anyway, who explode worlds as a weapon? It's sheer madness."
Chane shrugged. "They've got the worlds to spare.... This cluster is just a graveyard of dead suns and planets, with no life on any of them. And they've got the radite. A big charge of it, when it's set off, transforms a great mass of the planet into unstable atomic compounds, and it blows. It's easy for them."
Another mined planet blazed up, and then two more almost at once. All the dead suns and icy worlds of the dark duster sprang into visibility in the unthinkable glare that was the pyre of planets.
"All thirty of the robot ships gone," reported the man at the scope.
"How near did they get to Chlann?" demanded Harkann.
The man punched a key, and then read off the figure.
"Pretty near," muttered Harkann. "But there might be a few more explosive worlds yet."
Chane shook his head. "Too near Chlann for that, I think. They would hardly want a backblast from their own weapon." He added, "Well, the robot ships have made a path for us through the Lethal Worlds. Are we going in?"
"We'll go in," said Harkann,
and spoke the signal, and the whole Starwolf squadron dashed forward in a long, narrow column.
It was a poor fighting formation if the Qajars came out to fight, thought Chane. But only a narrow column could follow the gap made by the robot ships through the Lethal Worlds. And maybe that gap wasn't wide enough, maybe they would catch it in a planet-flare; but if that was so, they would never know what happened, so why worry?
They had put on the anti-radiation helmets that had been prepared at Varna, and Chane thought that they all looked oddly like ancient soldiers. But the helmets should keep out the worst of that mind-shattering attack weapon the Qajars used. He hoped.
The Starwolf column flashed into the cluster, following exactly the middle of the path that the sacrificed robot ships had taken. The old Starwolf swoop, thought Chane, that all the galaxy feared. But they might have bitten off too much, this time.
A hellish flare blotted out the whole universe on their right. A small planet had gone to glory there, but when their dazzled eyes recovered, they saw on the radar screen that the column had not been touched and was driving ahead.
Now other dead worlds and moons let go, and all space seemed filled with the gigantic flares. The circuits of the ship faltered, lights went out, the craft rocked and went dead and then picked up again, but all the time their roaring momentum kept them going in.
It was like running a gauntlet of world-destroying fires, thought Chane. Harkann sat like a rock, looking doggedly at the viewscreen, his massive shoulders unmoving.
He's my enemy and I'm probably going to have to kill him, thought Chane, but he goes into battle like a Varnan.
Shaken, quaking and shuddering, the Starwolf ships rushed on. Dead planets far too distant to harm them sent up their mighty flares as they exploded.
Chane thought that the Qajars must be afraid indeed of the Starwolves, to try to frighten them back with this holocaust of worlds. But it took a good deal to frighten a Varnan.
The last flares fell behind them, and their stunned eyes began to recover.
A needle of pain went through Chane's brain. It was like the time when he and Dilullo and Gwaath had been tortured, but not a tenth of that agony. It gimleted into his head, and seemed to twist and turn.
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