Jokan had been writing furiously on a slate. He passed the results to the most disturbed Councilmen. They grouped around him, their voices rising in the excitement his figures aroused. Harlan glanced down at the confusion, at first with annoyance, until he saw the change of attitude in these skeptics.
“We are approaching communication limit. If I don’t come back, you can skin me in effigy. If I do, it will be as a victorious commander and we’ll debate the ethics involved. In the meantime, Jokan has as many answers as I since he’s been in charge of the project. You have the benefit of his talents and I do not. Jokan, jet it into their thick heads, will you?” Harlan urged. “I’ll beam you at zero hour and, unless you like the noise, you’d better cut the sound on all screens,” he warned.
“You technicians got the spatial coordinates now?” he asked the clerks in the banks around the tank. They raised right hands in reply. Harlan’s eyes left the immediate foreground and scanned the space above the Councilmen’s heads. I made myself as tall as I could in the hope he might be looking for me, but the expression on his face, set, cold, tired, did not change. The picture began to waver. Harlan looked off to his right in the control room, then back to the Councilmen.
“We’re at the limits, sirs. My respects to you all,” and the picture dissolved into blurs.
The droning voice had ended, too. The big room was strangely silent for what seemed a long, long time. As if everyone found the quiet unbearable, everyone began to talk at once. The Councilmen turned on Jokan with intense expressions and garrulous queries. Messengers began to move back and forth around the room. I sat down, confused by all the discussion and disheartened by its tone. Ferrill appeared disinterested and I drew some courage from his attitude.
“What was that all about?” I asked, abandoning any pretense of knowledge.
My request did not surprise Ferrill. He leaned forward, planting his forearms on the table comfortably as he enlightened me.
“The Ertois are workers of crystal and quartzite. They had developed a primitive form of energy, electricity, they called it, long before the Mil descended on them. Our force screens are an adaption of their electricity. They discovered, by what freak chance I don’t remember, that the Mil cannot stand electrical currents or sonic vibrations. They ringed their planet with gigantic electromagnetos, activating them in case of Mil attack. The metal of the Mil ships became a conductor and the Mil were electrocuted. Now, we had to figure a way to adapt this principle to use in space. Sound doesn’t travel in the vacuum, of course, but regulate the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation and you produce a resonant phenomenon in the ship hulls that literally tears the Mil cell from cell. Ironically, though the Mil are much larger than we, they are easy victims to a weapon that we can endure.
“My father was very interested in this application of resonators. You see, we’ve never had an offensive weapon. That’s why our casualties have always been so high. The only advantage we have had over the Mil in battle has been our ability to take higher accelerations and make sharper maneuvers. It’s a pretty slim advantage.
“This project has been going on for several decades. It’s been expensive and was discontinued when Fathor died. Council had an attack of conservatism and the Mil were quiet on the Rim. Harlan reinstated the project under Jokan who is one of our few creative geniuses.
“The reason our skeptics have been so upset is that they have never seen what the resonators can do to a simulated Mil protoplasm. I have seen it and, granted it was under ideal laboratory conditions, the results were incredible.” His eyes narrowed. “There is a minor theory going around, which I am inclined to support, that Gorlot used the resonators to herd the Mil into Tane. It’s the only way he could have managed to control their direction.”
“Why didn’t Harlan mention that?” I asked. “Didn’t he know?”
Ferrill shrugged. “Where the Mil are concerned, logic is sometimes useless. Particularly right now. Look what’s happened. The Mil have actually been allowed past the Perimeter. They have been allowed to wipe out an entire race. For seventy-five years, they haven’t been able to penetrate the Rim defenses for more than a few parsecs.
“Our ancestors were used to the menace of the Mil in their skies. As accustomed as one is able to get to such a thought. But we aren’t. Stannall may be our leading Councilman and a very intelligent fellow, but the mere thought of the possibility of the Mil coming back into Lotharian skies turns him into a quivering mass of ancient fears and superstition. And Harlan has just blithely assured him that he will wait to reform before Lothar itself in order to test this new weapon!”
“Why does he have to wait?” I asked confused.
“Because, Lady Sara,” Ferrill explained patiently, “the beam attenuates with distance, losing its strength. The maximum effect is gained at close quarters—spatially speaking—from an encirclement, so that each resonator is equidistant from the target, setting up the resonating phenomenon at maximum efficiency.”
“If they can’t encircle?” I asked, perceiving some of the dread with which Stannall and the others received Harlan’s gamble.
“The usual tactics, only we will have a ringside seat,” and Ferrill gestured heavenward.
“What are the usual tactics?” I insisted.
Ferrill regarded me seriously for a moment.
“You really don’t know, do you?” he remarked with amazement. “We have discovered only two ways to dispose of a Mil ship. Both are dangerous to the attacker because we lack an offensive weapon other than speed and maneuverability. We must either knock out their control room, which means a close-range assault with nucleonic weapons that match theirs, or we must make a direct hit on their fuel source. The first is preferable because it leaves us a new recruit for our fleet . . . after decontamination, of course. The second method blows up the ship.”
“You heard Harlan mention eighty-five percent casualties, didn’t you?” Ferrill continued and I nodded. “He means just that. There are only four Star-class cruisers in our fleet, eighty-five planet weight and forty satellite variety plus about fifty rider suicide ships. Figure out your eighty-five percent against a force of twenty-three Mil ships, fifteen of them Star-class and you can see why Harlan is going to gamble on our new offensive weapon.”
My mental arithmetic was not up to estimating the odds, but eight-five percent was obviously a Pyrrhic victory.
“Back in my great-grandfather’s day, we once had a force against us of one Star-class, four planet and a satellite. We had, at the time, eighty ships. Nine returned. We disabled two planet-types and the satellite. That was the biggest force we have ever attacked until now. The Mil usually send a group of planets and satellites. With their consistent losses in this area of the Great Starry Wheel, you’d think the Mil would have left us alone long ago.”
“You mean some of their ships still get through?”
Ferrill looked startled. “No! We destroy enough so that they retreat. But there is always a terrific loss of life for us.
“To knock out the control room, a suicide rider with nine men must approach to maximum penetration range of the nuclear missiles. That’s about one hundred land miles. That’s too close to a Mil, believe me. The ships are nothing but speed and one long cannon. Their success depends jointly on the skill and diversionary tactics of the pilot and the accuracy of the gunner. Very often, the suiciders are crushed by the impact of their own blast. All too often, the Mil gunners get the range first. And sometimes,” and Ferrill shuddered, “the riders are grappled and pulled inboard. Even if we do disable the Mil ship, those men are lost.”
“Why?” I asked without thinking.
Ferrill clicked his tongue at me. “One, if the men haven’t as yet been touched, they’ve gone mad by the time we reach them. Two, if they have been skinned, Council’s edict about restoration makes euthanasia imperative.”
“Skinned,” he had said. I had been “skinned,” alive! I fought the rising nausea and the shaking that grip
ped my diaphragm.
“I’ll wager that’s why!” Ferrill said with a note of triumph in his voice.
“Why what?” I managed to say, pushing to the back of my mind his last words.
“Why Monsorlit tied in with Gorlot”; and he leaned forward so that our conversation could not be overheard. “Gorlot knew some ships and men would fall into Mil hands. He had to have someone make perfect restorations on the victims so they would seem to be no more than Tane casualties. And Monsorlit went one step better. He pulled those restorees out of shock so there could be no suspicion whatever of the men having been Mil victims. To prove his point, Monsorlit would take a far greater risk.”
“I’ll tell Harlan you’re trying to dishonor his claim,” said Jokan’s voice behind me.
Ferrill grinned up at his uncle with a deprecating laugh. Jokan pulled up a chair and signaled a server.
“Did you manage to reassure the skeptics?” Ferrill demanded with an affectation of disinterest.
Jokan shrugged expressively and threw the slate he carried toward Ferrill who cocked his head sideways to read the slate without having to pick it up.
“The odds are favorable,” he said with some surprise. “Even if a trifle close to home. Don’t they see that?”
“What they see is the space tank and the proximity of the Mil to Lothar,” Jokan scoffed. “I believe the older one gets the more the fears and superstitions we should have abandoned centuries ago cloud the thinking.”
“Don’t they realize that the older one gets the less valuable he becomes to the Mil?” Ferrill pointed out cold-bloodedly. “No fat. No meat. No smooth hide.”
Jokan did not hide his distaste of Ferrill’s observation.
“I’m not concerned,” he said stiffly. Then grinned as he added, “But then, I’m under the largest pile of reinforced rock and metal on the planet. I also remind myself what the resonators can do to the Mil . . .”
“Under ideal laboratory conditions,” Ferrill inserted maliciously.
“Under ideal laboratory conditions,” Jokan assented without rancor, “which Harlan, with the reinforcement of the Ertoi and Glan, can reproduce.”
“If the Ertoi and Glan arrive in time,” Ferrill amended.
Jokan’s eyes sparkled angrily. “Are you through qualifying the odds against us?”
Ferrill flashed a look at Jokan but thought better of what he was about to say and hitched one shoulder negligently.
“I’m realistic, my dear uncle. Also I find an element of humor in the situation.”
Jokan snorted with disgust at this observation.
“Your humor was never so warped before, my dear nephew.”
“Nor was my life,” Ferrill added quietly, then added too brightly, “Monsorlit has been frightening Harlan’s Sara.”
“Ha. He’s in no position to frighten anyone. Stannall’s after him again. Monsorlit had best look to his own defense. And you have the strongest protection, Lady Sara,” Jokan said stoutly.
He had finished his quick meal as we talked and now rose.
“You two can exchange insults, if you wish,” he said as he glanced at the large time dial above the space tank, “but there are precisely eight hours and thirty-two seconds before encirclement and I intend to use it in sleeping. I relinquish our mutual ward into your safekeeping, Ferrill.” He bowed to the ex-Warlord and then to me, with a touch of his old insouciance, and departed.
“He’s sure about Stannall being after Monsorlit?” I asked hopefully.
Ferrill shrugged. “Stannall has been after Monsorlit for years. Never did know why. Some old quarrel. Stannall has a capacity for grudges that is astonishing.”
“Didn’t I hear Jokan call you nephew?” I asked after a pause.
“He is, after all, my uncle.”
“Well, why isn’t he a candidate for Warlord, instead of Maxil?”
“He and Harlan are only half-brothers to my father, Fathor. But you should remember that only my father’s line can inherit under the old laws. If Fathor had died without issue, and he certainly waited long enough to claim his lady, it would have been different. It’s a pity, too, because Jokan shows the real Harlan strain.”
“Doesn’t Harlan?” I demanded, piqued.
Ferrill chuckled and I realized his omission had been intentional. “Obviously. But Harlan’s real mission in life is to find more and more new planets. The Tane success went to his head. He’s got jet-itch. Besides he’s got nowhere near the deviousness of Jokan.”
“Then,” I demanded, confused by the intricacies of Lotharian governmental structure, “why wasn’t Jokan made Regent instead of Harlan?”
Patiently Ferrill explained that Harlan had been a Perimeter Commander. Jokan had never reached that rank nor intended to. Unfortunately, such military experience was the prime requisite for the Regency.
“Is that how Gorlot got in instead of Jokan when Harlan was drugged?”
“Naturally,” Ferrill assented, his eyes glittering angrily. “The system has too many faults and this affair should make it obvious to the Council that a revision of the old laws must be made. We are too hampered by age-old superstition and pre-Perimeter contingencies.” He snorted derisively. “It’s absurd to assume that only a direct descendant of the original Harlan can lead us to victory over the Mil. It’s ridiculous to bind the genius of modern military tactics to planet-bound traditions. Just like that argument over there!” and he indicated the group of Councilmen arguing vehemently around the space tank.
“Would they really censure Harlan for disregarding them?”
“How can they?” Ferrill scoffed. “At the moment, he is Warlord. That’s why he was picked as Regent, in the event of a military emergency an inexperienced stripling could not handle. His plan is law: it’s just typical of Harlan to wish to have Stannall’s agreement. It is preferable to have the First Councilman agree with you if you are Regent or Warlord.”
He rose abruptly.
“Jokan’s suggestion is contagious. We’ve hours yet before the crucial test of Harlan’s revolutionary tactics. Sleep passes time admirably. But first, join me for a glance at the tank?”
Ferrill and I stood a little removed from the others. He rightly assumed I needed an explanation. The science behind the tank’s projection he did not bother to expatiate. Its physical presence, however, was awesome enough. It was composed of an amber, transparent liquid or gas with no apparent material enclosing its circumference. It stood ten feet high and wide in the center of the room it dominated. A coil of wires at its foot was the sole connection to the machines and computers that formed a semicircle at its base. Beyond them, built obliquely from the ceiling, were the now blank screens. Only one panel on the boards below the screens was active, the master panel to which each ship in action was hooked. If the light which identified the ship went out, the ship had been destroyed. The technician could also tell by the color variation and pulsations the extent, in theory, of damage to any given vessel. At the computers the clerks were still busy. In all the room, no one’s eyes stayed long away from the mesmeric quality of the slowly moving masses in the tank.
Guardedly Ferrill indicated Lothar, a green ball in the approximate center of the tank. Above and beyond were Ertoi in blue and Glan’s yellow. Below and away from the other three systems was the red of the two Tane planets.
From Ertoi and Glan, lancing downward and bypassing Lothar were the light points of the Alliance ships, speeding to their rendezvous with Lothar’s fleet. Beyond Ertoi and Glan, I saw eight tiny points of light at regular intervals; far, far apart. Ferrill said they were the skeletal Perimeter Patrol that would be all Glan would have to defend it from the Mil if they broke through. Ertoi relied still on its sonic barrier.
“Why doesn’t Glan have it, too?” I asked, thinking that would have freed eight more ships.
“They never considered it necessary with the protection the Alliance has afforded them up till now.”
Speeding out from Lothar and converg
ing from other points around the remaining quadrants of the tank was the fleet, moving not as swiftly as the Alliance ships but as inexorably. From the bottom of the tank, approaching with what I thought appalling comparative speed were the invading lights of the Mil. The alarm of the Councilmen was no longer a verbal fear that Jokan’s assurances and Ferrill’s amused air could dispel. It took no technician to estimate how near to Lothar that battle would take place. And the Mil’s ominous approach was aimed at the equator of the seemingly doomed Tanes.
“Would the Mil land on one of the Tane?” I asked.
Ferrill shook his head in a quick negative response.
“The Mil would never land with such a force approaching them. They could be blown off a planet and our casualties would be light. We overused those tactics a few centuries ago. No. They’ll meet Harlan in space. They’re pretty contemptuous of us in space, you know. I doubt they’ll remain so long.”
We watched, as others did, in hypnotized silence as the blinking lights made their almost imperceptible way. Finally, Ferrill touched my arm lightly and we both retired to our sleeping quarters.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A GENTLE TICKLING ON MY feet roused me. The room was lit and I could see Ferrill grinning mischievously as he gave my foot one last brush.
“I used to wake Cherez like that and she’d throw a fit,” he grinned. “I thought you’d like to be in on the fun. Harlan’s brave gamble is about to start.”
I scrambled out of the cot, took time to dash cold water in my eyes and comb back my hair before joining Ferrill. I wouldn’t have needed Ferrill’s comment to know that the climax was at hand. The entire room watched the screen, some standing on chairs or desks for better views of the all-important spatial tank. The computers were silent. Conversation was limited to terse low whispers. The tension, fear and apprehension in the main room was like a physical blow after the sleeping quarters. Ferrill had paused at the threshold and we both drifted through the watchers until we found Jokan. He was standing behind Stannall and Lesatin. Jokan looked around irritably as I brushed against him to make way for Ferrill. He gave us the sketchiest of acknowledgments before turning back to the tank.
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