The battle-lines on the Jupiter globes by which earth's people followed the struggle crept steadily northward toward the pole in the following year. Ever Halkett's Jovians were forced to retreat to new defenses and ever after them came Crane and Burnham and the hosts of the Council's Army, contracting upon them in a steadily diminishing circle. They would ultimately press the Jovians together near the pole and Halkett fought to prevent that.
It was in some ways a strange situation. The three inseparable friends of boyhood and youth become men and fighting the war of races there on North Jupiter, one of them renegade to an alien race and the other two advancing always with their forces on him. No one could accuse Crane of letting his former friendship affect him, in the face of his grim determination. He pushed Halkett's line unrelentingly northward.
And as Halkett's line, the defenses of the Jovians, reached the warm polar regions, Halkett's own military genius flamed. He commanded the Jovians in a way which, despite the meagerness of their atomic weapons, held Crane's forces to the slowest advance. The once-mild flipper-men fought like demons under his leadership. Crane, of all men, appreciated Halkett's supreme generalship in those grim days on North Jupiter. But he punched grimly on, and Halkett's circular line grew smaller and smaller as the Jovians retreated.
It was the retreat of a race — the weary hosts of the Jovians ever backing northward through the steamy fern forests that had been theirs for untold time, throwing up new dirtworks and digging new trenches always at Halkett's command, using every sort of ambush device Halkett could think of to hold back the earthmen. The fern forests resounded with the roar of atom-blasts and crash of atom bombs, strange things flopping this way and that in the green depths to escape the battle, the Jovians all round the planet fighting bitterly now for existence.
And ever after them Crane's men, the metal-armored hosts of earthmen struggling against every obstacle of heat and gravitation and illness. For days they would toil through the giant ferns without meeting resistance and then would come upon the new line Halkett had massed the Jovians upon. And then again the blasts would be roaring in death from Jovians and earthmen as the earthmen attacked. And ever despite their desperate resistance the Jovians were pushed back northward, toward the pole.
Reconnoitering rockets brought word to Crane that Halkett had established a refugee camp near the pole that held several millions of the Jovians and that he was collecting atom-blasts and bombs there and digging works around it. Crane sought to cut this base out of Halkett's circle but Halkett saw the maneuver and occupied the place with most of his remaining forces. To do so he had to abandon his circular line of defense except for some smaller bases. So at last the circle of Halkett's line around North Jupiter was gone, and the Jovians held only those fortified bases.
Earth flamed with gladness as Crane went systematically about the work of reducing these bases. He sent Burnham with a force of earthmen large enough to hold Halkett and his Jovians inside the main base, while he reduced the smaller ones. There was bloody
fighting before he took them. Those Jovians, miserably few in number, who survived in them, were sent to temporary prison-camps pending their removal to the reservations established. Then with that done, Crane came with all his forces and joined Burnham in front of the last Jovian base in which sat Halkett and his battered remaining Jovians, fighters and refugees.
Crane surprised Burnham and his officers by stating he would treat with Halkett for surrender, though the Council had ordered otherwise.
He sent in a messenger summoning Halkett to surrender and avoid' further bloodshed, promising the Jovians would be sent to reservations and pointing out the futility of resistance.
Halkett's reply was calm. "There will be no surrender unless the Jovians are given their rights as natives and owners of this planet. Nothing the Jovians endure now can be worse than what they've already gone through."
Crane read the answer to Burnham, his bronzed lined face set. "Halkett and the Jovians mean it," he said. "They'll resist to the last and we'll have to attack."
Burnham leaned to him. "Crane, tell me," he said, "are you trying to save the Jovians in there or Halkett?"
Crane looked at him, heartsickness on his face. "Burn, it's not Halkett. Better for him if he died in an attack rather than to be taken back to earth and executed. But those Jovians — I'm tired of killing them."
Burnham nodded thoughtfully. "But what are you going to do? Order the attack tomorrow? The men are impatient to start it."
Crane thought, then surprised him. "Burn, you and I are going in to see Halkett and try to get him to take these terms. He won't come out but we can go in safely enough."
"But the Council—" Burnham began. Crane waved him impatiently aside. "I'm conducting this campaign and not the Council. I say we're going in."
He sent a message through the works to Halkett, and Halkett replied that he would be glad to confer with General Crane and Colonel Burnham regarding terms, but anticipated no change of mind. Crane ordered all hostilities suspended and at sunset he and Burnham went with two Jovians and a white flag toward the Jovian defenses. The misty red sun was sinking behind the horizon, so distant from the huge planet, when they reached the Jovian works.
The two flipper-men blindfolded them before taking them through the dirtworks and entrenchments, no doubt at Halkett's order, and took off the bandages when they were inside. Crane and Burnham saw before them the great enclosure that held the innumerable masses of the Jovian refugees. There was no shelter for most but at some sheds small portions of fruit and makeshift vegetable foods were being rationed out to some of them. The crowds of flipper-men, bulky strange figures in the dying light, looked mildly at Crane and Burnham as they were led through the great enclosure.
As they followed their guides Crane saw for himself the battered Jovian forces he had pushed north for so long, with their crudely made atom-blasts and bombs, many standing guard round the inner works. Here and there in the enclosure were large dumps of atomic bombs, protected by shelters. Near one of these was a small hut toward which the two Jovians led them.
Halkett and three Jovians came out of the hut as Crane and Burnham approached. Halkett and his aides waited for them and the two earthmen went on toward them, with the slow laborious steps against the gravity-drag that were second nature to earthmen on Jupiter now. It was a strange meeting. The three had not met together since they had parted on South Jupiter eight years before.
Halkett wore an old suit of the metal body-strengthening armor and had a bandage round his lower left arm. His face was bronzed, and was lined and worn looking, but his eyes were calm. He was a contrast to Crane and Burnham, trim in their metal body-protection with on it the insignia of the Council Army that Halkett once had worn.
Halkett did not offer to shake hands with them, but waited. Crane's first words were confused and stiffly formal. He mentioned the terms.
"We can't accept them," Halkett told him calmly. "We've fought against them from the first and these Jovians would rather die than go to your Jovian reservations."
"But what else can you do?" asked Crane. "You know as well as I do that I've enough forces to take this place and that we'll do it if you don't give in."
"I know," said Halkett, "but the Jovians wouldn't do it if I told them to, and I'm not going to tell them. Besides, I've a way out for these Jovians."
"A way out?" Burnham said. "There's no way out with your works completely surrounded."