"Maybe they get hurt real easy. Don't forget we gave them a bloody nose or twonot as much as they busted us, but we hurt them some. I figure they'll come out again, soon as they can cut it."
He drew a deep breath. "Next time, we have to be ready for them. Next time, they may not stop. We have to dope them out."
It was tough work, he thought, to fight an enemy about which one knew next to nothing. And a weapon about which one knew absolutely nothing.
There were theories in plenty, but the best no more than educated guesses.
The weapon might operate in timehurling its targets back into unimagined chaos. Or it might be dimensional. Or it might collapse the atoms in upon themselves, reducing a spaceship to the most deadly massive dustmote the universe had known.
One thing for certainit was not disintegration, for there was no flash and there was no heat. The ship just disappeared and that was the end of itthe end and all of it.
"There's another thing that bothers me," said Doc. "Those other races that fought the Flyers before they jumped on us. When we tried to contact them, when we tried to get some help from them, they wouldn't bother with us. They wouldn't tell us anything."
"This is a new sector of space for us," lhe general said. "We are strangers here."
"It stands to reason," argued Doe, "they should jump at the chance to gang up on the Flyers."
"We can't depend on alliances. We stand alone. It is up to us."
He bent to leave the tent.
"We'll get right on it," said Doc, "soon as the men show up. We'll have a preliminary report within an hour, if they're in any shape at all."
"That's fine," the general said and ducked out of the tent.
It was a bad situation, blind and terrifying if one didn't manage to keep a good grip on himself.
The captive humans might bring back some information, but even so, you couldn't buy it blind, for there might be a gimmick in it as there was a gimmick in what the captive Flyer knew.
This time, he told himself, the psych boys might hay managed to outsmart themselves.
It had been a clever trick, all righttaking the captive Five on that trip and showing him so proudly all the barren, no-good planets, pretending they were the showplaces of the Confederacy.
Cleverif the Flyer had been human. For no human would have fought a skirmish, let alone a war, for the kind of planet he'd been shown.
But the Flyer wasn't human. And there was no way of knowing what kind of planet a Flyer might take a fancy to.
And there always was the chance that those crummy planets had given him the hunch that Earth would be easy prey.
The whole situation didn't track, the general thought. There was a basic wrongness to it. Even allowing for all the difference which might exist between the Flyer and the human culture the wrongness still persisted.
And there was something wrong right here.
He heard the sound and wheeled to stare into the sky.
The ship was close and coming in too fast.
But even as he held his breath, it slowed and steadied an came to ground in a perfect landing not more than a quarter of a mile from where the Earth ship stood.
The general broke into a run toward it, then remembered and slowed to a stiff military walk.
Men were tumbling out of tents and forming into lines. A order rang across the area and the lines moved with perfect drill precision.
The general allowed himself a smile. Those boys of his were good. You never caught them napping. If the Flyers had expected to sneak in and catch the camp confused and thus gain a bit of face, it was a horse on them.
The marching men swung briskly down the field. An ambulance moved out from beneath its tarp and followed. Drums began to roll and the bugles sounded clear and crisp in the harsh, cold air.
It was men like these, the general told himself with pride, who held the expanding Confederacy intact. It was men like these who kept the peace across many cubic light-years. It was men like these who some day, God willing, would roll back the Flyer threat.
There were few wars now. Space was too big for it. There were too many ways to skirt around the edge of war for it to come anything but seldom. But something like the Flyer threat could not be ignored. Some day, soon or late, either Earth or Flyer must go down to complete defeat. The Confederacy could never feel secure with the Flyers on its flank.
Feet pounded behind him and the general turned. It was Captain Gist, buttoning his tunic as he ran. He fell in beside the general.
"So they finally came, sir."
"Fourteen hours late," the general said. "Let us, for the moment, try to look our best. You missed a button, Captain."
"Sorry, sir," the captain said, fastening the button.
"Right, then. Get those shoulders back. Smartly, if you will. Right, left, hup, hup!"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Sergeant Conrad had his squad moving out with precision, escorting the captive Flyer most correctly forward, with all the dignity and smartness that anyone might wish.
The men were drawn up now in two parallel lines, flanking the ship. The port was swinging open and the ramp was rumbling out and the general noted with some satisfaction that he and Captain Gist would arrive at the foot of the ramp about the time it touched the ground. The timing was dramatic and superb, almost as if he himself had planned it down to the last detail.
The ramp snapped into position and three Flyers came sedately waddling down it.
A seedy-looking trio, the general thought. Not a proper uniform nor a medal among the lot of them.
The general seized the diplomatic initiative as soon as the ramp reached the ground.
"We welcome you," he told them, speaking loudly an slowly and as distinctly as he could so they would understand.
They lined up and stood looking at him and he felt a bit uncomfortable because there was that round jolly expression on their faces. Evidently they didn't have the kind of faces that could assume any other expression. But they kept on looking at him.
The general plunged ahead. "It is a matter of great gratification to Earth to carry out in good faith our obligations agreed upon in the armistice proceedings. It marks what we sincerely hope will be the beginning of an era…"
"Most nice," one of the Flyers said. Whether he meant the general's little speech or the entire situation or was simply trying to be gracious was not at once apparent.
Undaunted, the general was ready to go on, but the spokesman Flyer raised a short round arm to halt him. "Prisoners arrive briefly," he whistled.
"You mean you didn't bring them?"
"They come again," the Flyer said with a glorious disregard for preciseness of expression. He continued beaming at the general and he made a motion with the arm that might have been a shrug.
"Shenanigans," the captain said, close to the general's ear.
"We talk," the Flyer said.
"They're up to something," warned the captain. "It calls for Situation Red, sir."
"I agree," the general told the captain. "Set it up quietly."
He said to the Flyer delegation: "If you gentlemen will come with me, I can offer you refreshments."
He had a feeling that they were smiling at him, but one could never tell. Those jolly expressions were always the same. No matter what the situation.
"Most happy," said the Flyer spokesman. "These refresh…"
"Drink," the general said and made a motion to supplement the word.
"Drink is good," the Flyer answered. "Drink is friend?"
"That is right," the general said.
He started for the tent, walking slowly so the Flyers could keep up.
He noted with some satisfaction that the captain had carried on most rapidly, indeed. Corporal Conrad was marching his squad back across the area, with the captive Flyer shambling in the centre. The tarps were coming off the guns and the last of the crew was clambering up the ladder of the ship.