Because Jutch had managed to beat out the other two candidates, he was in the chair—or on it, crouched on his rear legs while the frontmost limbs rested on the oval table. Big Polly and A-Belinka flanked him, one on each side, and straggling down through the other places were Jupiter and Miranda and half a dozen technical-specialist smart erks, ready to fill in any needed details. Manyface could have been there, but wasn't; heaven knew where the old man was wandering. None of the other recent arrivals could have been, either because they didn't have permission, like Tsoong Delilah, or because they were safely scattered all over World, in singles and groups too small for critical mass.
The first order of business was readiness reports. Castor watched them absently as they were projected on the index screen. They had not changed much from day to day, except that at each day's briefing there were a few more attack and support vessels that had been hurled into orbit by the launch loops, and a few more standbys still on the ground. All the council watched attentively, erk and human, but this wasn't the fun part. The fun part was the plans. The index machines had been busy, assimilating data and preparing strategies based on Jutch's synoptic version of the council's deliberations. Now they were ready.
Jutch snapped his fingers, and one of the minor erks rose to the index controls. In a moment he projected a picture on the screen beside Castor's portrait. The picture showed the erk scout ship, floating in orbit around the Earth.
"This," said Jutch earnestly, "we must protect at all costs. If we let the Chinks hurt the scout ship we would not be able to deploy another for forty-two years."
Snap of the fingers again. Now the scout ship was hidden in the rings of Saturn, and its violet spaceway was flickering into life. Another vessel was coming through.
"So we will hide the scout ship where the Chinks can't find it," said Jutch, "and send our forces through at a considerable distance from the Earth. There will be a loss of transit time, of course. But the scout ship will be safe.
"Here," he said, picking up a pointer with his teeth and indicating the vessel emerging through the spaceway, "is our first advance party. As you see, it is the President's own spacecraft, just as it arrived here—or so it will seem. It will display the recognition signals. President Pettyman will be aboard it to talk when there are any challenges. It will approach the Earth, soothing any fears the Chinks may have. And then, following it a few hours later"— snap of the fingers; new picture on the screen, this time of one war vessel after another pouring through the space-way—"a whole fleet of transports and warcraft.
"The President's ship"—snap: a schematic of the vessel—"will be fully armed.
"The other ships"—snap—"will contain full continent-blaster weaponry on the attack vessels, and the transports will contain eighteen hundred crack troops, Yank and erk, with portable nukes. Of course, once we have landed we will recruit additional combat personnel from the Real-Americans themselves, and in the third wave there will be cargo vessels to provide them with weapons, materiel, and some of the nicest blue-and-white uniforms you ever saw." He looked irritably at Castor. "What is it?"
Castor said, "Those aren't the right colors. The Americans wore khaki or olive drab. It was the sailors that wore blue and white."
"Oh, Castor," said Jutch impatiently, "what tiny details you worry about! I picked the colors of the uniforms. They are the same ones the Living Gods wore. Now, are there any serious questions?"
There were none. Jutch waved his vibrissae in satisfaction. "Then," he declared, "there are only two things left to do: choose the crew of the President's yacht and set a time for the invasion to begin."
Big Polly had been silent longer than she liked. "I think," she said, "that we can wait to select the crew until the last minute."
"That makes sense," said A-Belinka approvingly from the other side of the chair—meaning, as did Big Polly, that he wanted all the time he could get to think of good reasons why he should be part of the party.
"Then," said Jutch, "what about the date? I suggest it be eight days from now, exactly."
Big Polly frowned. "Why eight days, exactly?" she demanded.
"Why not?" said the erk sweetly. "Let's put it to the vote." And when the votes were in and almost unanimous—Big Polly had abstained out of annoyance, Castor because he was lost in thought—Jutch said in triumph, "Then we liberate America in one hundred and ninety-two hours from—now!"
And another smart erk darted from his place at the table to the index screen controls, and in a moment a digital readout spread itself across the screen:
COUNTDOWN H191 M59 S30
and, flick, flick, the 30 changed to 29, to 28, to 27 as the last hours of America's occupation by the Chinese began to pass.
No one spoke to the President of the United States as he got up from the oval table and wandered out into the sultry, misty outside air. There really were serious questions, he knew. He had a lot of them himself.
But where could he ask them? He couldn't ask them of Jutch, or any of the erks. He could not ask them of Manyface, because Manyface was clearly committed to the Chinese side in the war of the Yanks and the Chinks. He could not ask them of Delilah for the same reason or of Miranda because she was so clearly on the Yank side. There seemed to be no living thing on World not committed to one side or the other of the war that he wished need not be fought, so where could a neutral go to ask questions?
The library was the only neutral source.
It was not really neutral, of course. It was erk-programmed and erk-compiled, and it reflected erk pride in battle plans and weaponry. They were not all erk designs, of course. In fact, the erks themselves had contributed rather little. It was the Living Gods who had first started the military sections of the indices; what the erks had added was less their own contribution than what they had gleaned from the strategies and technologies of the enemies they had joyously elected to fight.
And how many of them there were!
In his first visit to the library Castor had got only an impression of many wars. He did not stop to count them. Horrified, he jumped away from the viewer seeking the clean outside air. (But all there was was the damp and sticky breeze of World.) The room that housed the library was not only damp and sticky. It stank. Dumb erks slept in it when they chose and relieved themselves in it when no one was looking, which was usually. The smart erks had other libraries, better adjusted to their physical needs. In the old library that Castor used the viewers were binocular, but set for two eyes not very much like a human beings (though even less like an erk's). They would have fit just perfectly against the eyes of the Living Gods, set birdlike on the sides of the head rather than in front. For Castor to use those eyepieces for any length of time gave him a most amazing headache.
What he saw was more painful still.
There had been, he counted, no fewer than nine wars! Nine external ones, not counting when the Living Gods had wiped themselves out. Every war all but total! To be an enemy of the erks was clearly suicide. To be an ally was not much better. There were the winged creatures whose worlds had all been incinerated because the erks had not understood in time that to attack the world of one side in the dispute would bring prompt and overwhelming retribution against the other. There was the single planetary system of wormlike beings, two species, one huge and horny-skinned, the other tiny, soft, sharp-fanged. They wriggled and snuggled among each other's coils—and fought—and killed each other and devoured each other. When the erks joyously chose sides and entered the lists against the "enemy" they discovered too late that the races were symbiotic...