by Jack Douglas
volley from those damned smoky blasters of the Lukanians.All I could see was the same shimmering lights I had learned to know sowell in the War of Survival against Lukania. Someday maybe I'll find outhow to see a Lukan, Rajay-Ben has worked with me a long time to help,but when the attack came this time all I could do was eat ice and beam ahelp call to Rajay-Ben. That Centaurian trading unit was a cheap outfit,they had hired only one battalion of Arjay-Ben's Ninth Lukanian FreePatrol, and Rajay-Ben flanked them right off that planet. I got my boyson their feet and we chased Arjay's men half way back to Salaman withRajay-Ben laughing like a hyena the whole way.
"Dip me in mud, Red boy, I'd give a prime contract for one gander at oldArjay-Ben's face. He's blowing a gasket!"
I said, "Nice flank job."
Rajay-Ben laughed so hard I could see his pattern of colored lightshaking like a dancing rainbow. "I took two Sub-Commanders, wait'll Ihit that bullet-head for ransom!"
* * * * *
Then we stopped laughing. We had won the battle, but Arjay-Ben was acrafty old soldier and his sabotage squad had wrecked our engines andour heating units. We were stuck on a frozen planet without heat.
Young Colenso turned white. "What do we do?"
I said, "Beam for help and pray we don't freeze first."
They had missed our small communications reactor unit. We sent out ourcall, and we all huddled around the small reactor. There might be enoughheat out of it to let us live five hours. If we were lucky. It was thethird hour when Yuan Saltario began to talk. Maybe it was the nearnessof death.
"I was twenty-two. Portario was the leader on our planet. He found theerror when we had one ship ready. We had three days. No time to get theother ships ready. He said we were lucky, the other planets didn't haveeven one ship ready. Not even time for United Galaxies to help. Portariochose a thousand of us to go. I was one. At first I felt very good, youknow? I was really happy. Until I found out that my wife couldn't go.Not fit enough. United Galaxies had beamed the standards to us. Funnyhow you don't think about other people until something hurts you. I'dbeen married a year. I told them it was both of us or neither of us. Itold Portario to tell United Galaxies they couldn't break up a familyand to hell with their standards. They laughed at me. Not Portario, theCouncil. What did they care, they would just take another man. My wifebegged me to go. She cried so much I had to agree to go. I loved her toomuch to be able to stay and see the look on her face as we both diedwhen she knew I could have gone. On the ship before we took off I stoodat a port and looked down at her. A small girl trying to smile at me.She waved once before they led her away from the rocket. All hell wasshaking the planet already, had been for months, but all I saw was asmall girl waving once, just once. She's still here, somewhere downthere under the ice."
The cold was slowly creeping into us. It was hard to move my mouth, butI said, "She loved you, she wanted you to live."
"Without her, without my home, I'm as dead as the planet. I feel frozen.She's like that dead sun out there, and I'll circle around her untilsomeone gets me and ends it." Saltario seemed to be seeing something."I'm beginning to forget what she looked like. I don't want to forget! Ican't forget her on this planet. The way it was! It was a beautifulplace, perfect! I don't want to forget her!"
Colenso said, "You won't have long to remember."
* * * * *
But Colenso was wrong. My Third Battalion showed up when we had justless than an hour to live. They took us off. The Earth mining outfithaggled over the contract because the job had not been finished and Ihad to settle for two-third contract price. Rajay-Ben did better when heransomed Arjay-Ben's two Sub-Commanders. It wasn't a bad deal and Iwould have been satisfied, except that something had happened to YuanSaltario.
Maybe it made him realize that he did not want to die after all. Ormaybe it turned him space-happy and he began to dream. A dream of hisown born up there in the cold of his dead planet. A dream that nearlycost me my Company.
I did not know what that dream was until Saltario came into my office ayear later. He had a job for the Company.
"How many men?" I asked.
"Our Company and Rajay-Ben's Patrol," Saltario said.
"Full strength?"
"Yes, sir."
"Price?"
"Standard, sir," Saltario said. "The party will pay."
"Just a trip to your old planet?"
"That's all," Saltario said. "A guard contract. The hiring party justdon't want any interference with their project."
"Two full Companies? Forty thousand men? They must expect to need a lotof protecting."
"United Galaxies opposes the project. Or they will if they get wind ofit."
I said, "United opposes a lot of things, what's special about thisscheme?"
Saltario hesitated, then looked at me with those flat black eyes."Ionics."
It's not a word you say, or hear, without a chill somewhere deepinside. Not even me and I know a man can survive ionic weapons. I knowbecause I did once. Weapons so powerful I'm one of the last men alivewho saw them in action. Mathematically the big ones could wipe out aGalaxy. I saw a small one destroy a star in ten seconds. I watchedSaltario for a long time. It seemed a long time, anyway. It was probablytwenty seconds. I was wondering if he had gone space-crazy for keeps.And I was thinking of how I could find out what it was all about in timeto stop it.
I said, "A hundred Companies won't be enough. Saltario, have you everseen or heard what an ionic bomb can ..."
Saltario said, "Not weapons, peaceful power."
"Even that's out and you know it," I said. "United Galaxies won't eventouch peaceful ionics, too dangerous to even use."
"You can take a look first."
"A good look," I said.
I alerted Rajay-Ben and we took two squads and a small ship and Saltariodirected us to a tall mountain that jutted a hundred feet above the iceof Nova-Maurania. I was not surprised. In a way I think I knew from themoment Saltario walked into my office. Whatever it was Saltario was partof it. And I had a pretty good idea what it was. The only question washow. But I didn't have time to think it out any farther. In theCompanies you learn to feel danger.
The first fire caught four of my men. Then I was down on the ice. Theywere easy to see. Black uniforms with white wedges. Pete O'Hara's WhiteWedge Company, Earthmen. I don't like fighting other Earthmen, but ajob's a job and you don't ask questions in the Companies. It looked likea full battalion against our two squads. On the smooth ice surface therewas no cover except the jutting mountain top off to the right. And nolight in the absolute darkness of a dead star. But we could see throughour viewers, and so could they. They outnumbered us ten to one.Rajay-Ben's voice came through the closed circuit.
"Bad show, Red, they got our pants down!"
"You call it," I answered.
"Break silence!"
Surrender. When a Company breaks silence in a battle it means surrender.There was no other way. And I had a pretty good idea that the Councilitself was behind O'Hara on this job. If it was ionics involved, theywouldn't ransom us. The Council had waited a long time to catch RedStone in an execution offense. They wouldn't miss.
But forty of our men were down already.
"Okay," I beamed over the circuit, "break silence. We've had it Rajay."
"Council offense, Red."
"Yeah."
* * * * *
Well, I'd had a lot of good years. Maybe I'd been a soldier too long. Iwas thinking just like that when the sudden flank attack started. Fromthe right. Heavy fire from the cover of the solitary mountain top.O'Hara's men were dropping. I stared through my viewer. On that mountainI counted the uniforms of twenty-two different Companies. That was verywrong. Whoever Saltario was fronting for could not have the power or thegold to hire twenty-four Companies including mine and Rajay-Ben's. Andthe fire was heavy but not that heavy. But whoever they were they werevery welcome. We had a chance now. And I was making
my plans when thetall old man stood up on the small, jutting top of that mountain. Thetall old man stood up and a translating machine boomed out.
"All of you! O'Hara's men! Look at this!"
I saw it. In a beam of light on the top of that mountain it looked likea small neutron-source machine. But it wasn't. It was an ionic beamprojector.
The old man said, "Go home."
They went. They went fast and silent. And I knew where they were going.Not to Salaman. O'Hara would have taken one look at that machine and behalf way to United Galaxy Center before he had stopped