One of the Jovians beside Halkett said something to him in his odd bass voice. Halkett replied to him patiently, almost gently. Crane was watching him. Halkett turned back to him.
"Be reasonable, Halkett," Crane urged. "'You can't save the Jovians and there'll be just that many more of them killed in the attack."
"Do a few more Jovians killed now make any difference?" Halkett asked. "After all those killed on South and North Jupiter?"
He looked beyond them, thoughtful. "I wonder if Gillen foresaw any of this that's happened on Mars and Jupiter when he made his flight? What would Gillen think, I wonder, if he came back and saw all this that he started?"
They were silent for a little while. The short Jovian day was over and with the sunset's fading, twilight was upon them. Callisto and Io were at the zenith and Ganymede was climbing eastward, the three moons shedding a pale light over the great enclosure. Dimly they disclosed the masses of dark flipper-forms about Crane and Bumham and Halkett.
Burnham and Crane could hear with Halkett the occasional bass voices of the Jovians that were the only sounds. Most of them were silent and did not move about, huddling in masses for the night. By the inner works the Jovian fighters still stood calmly, big, dark motionless shapes seen strangely through the dim-lit darkness.
Crane spoke with an effort. "Then that's your last word on the terms, Halkett?"
Halkett nodded. "It's not mine, but that of the Jovians themselves."
Crane's restraint broke momentarily. "Halkett, why did you do it? Why did you become renegade to your own race, no matter what happened? Why have you made us hunt you north this way, fighting against you and with a duty to kill you?"
"I'm not sorry. Crane," said Halkett. "I've come to love these Jovians — so mild and child-like, so trustful to anyone friendly. It just seemed that somebody ought to stand up for them and give them at least a chance to fight. I don't care what you call me."
"Hell, let's get a rocket and the three of us will head for somewhere else together!" cried the Jimmy Crane of ten years before. "Some other planet — we'll make out without this damned Jupiter and earth and everyone on them! How did we three ever get into this, against each other, trying to kill each other?"
Halkett smiled, grasped Crane's hand then. "Jimmy!" he said. "You and Burn and I, back with Drake's expedition, three kids — you remember? But we can't change things now, and none of us are to blame, perhaps no one at all is really to blame, for what's happened."
Jimmy Crane with an effort became General James Crane. "Goodbye, Halkett," he said. "I'm sorry you can't accept the terms. Come on, Bumham."
Bumham tried to speak, his face working, but Halkett only smiled and shook his hand. He turned and went with Crane and the two Jovian guides, to the inner edge of the enclosure's defenses.
They saw Halkett standing with his three Jovian aides where they had left him. He was not looking after them. One of the Jovians was saying something and Crane and Bumham could see momentarily in the dim light Halkett's tanned, worn face as he turned to listen.
Crane and Bumham got back to their own camp and Crane called his officers. "We'll not delay attack until tomorrow but will start in two hours," he said. "They'll not expect an attack so soon."
Halkett must have expected it, though, for when the earth-forces moved upon the Jovian works from all sides they were met by every atom-blast of the Jovians. Europa had climbed into the sky by then and Jupiter's four moons looked down on the terrific assault. Blasts roared deafeningly and the thundering detonation of atomic bombs followed each other ceaselessly as the hosts of earthmen clambered into the Jovian works.
The Jovians beat back the attack. Crane concentrated forces in an attack on the enclosure's west side. He sent his rockets overhead to add to his barrage of atom bombs and managed to make a breach in the western defenses. Halkett, though, flung all his Jovians to close these openings and Crane's forces were beaten back from it after terrible losses on both sides.
Dawn was breaking after the brief night as Crane ordered the third attack, one from all sides again with the heaviest forces on the western side. This time Halkett could not concentrate his forces to hold the western breach. The ground heaved with the roar of bombs and blasts as the earthmen struggled in with high-pitched yells and with hand blasts spitting.
They poured into the breach despite the mad resistance of the remaining Jovian fighters, while on the eastern side the earth hosts also were penetrating the Jovian works. Then, as Crane and Bumham watched from the camp outside, they saw with the rising of the sun the sudden end.
The whole interior of the great circular Jovian enclosure went skyward in a terrific series of explosions that wiped out not only all of Halkett's Jovian followers and massed refugees but most of the Jovians and many of the earthmen fighting in the surrounding works. There was left only a huge crater.
"The dumps of atom bombs there in the enclosure!" cried Burnham. "A blast must have reached them and set them off!"
Crane nodded, his face strange. "Yes, a blast and in Halkett's hand. He set them off to wipe out his Jovians rather than see them sent to the reservations."
"My God!" Burnham cried. "That was Halkett's way out for the Jovians, then — old Halkett—"
Crane looked stonily at him. "Didn't you see that that was what he meant all the time to do? Give orders to round up those last Jovians in the works and bring them in.
"Then send this message back to earth. 'Last Jovian base taken and renegade Jovian leader Halkett dead. Jupiter under complete control. Accept my resignation from Council Army. Crane.' "