He gulped again, caught his breath. “To prove to your men that I am no longer an Earthman - a ship that they have sent for me will be waiting, on April 8th, Earth calendar, in the desert south of the Martian city of Toran.”
The white, lax mask of the Astrarch smiled. “I’m glad you told me, Veronar,” he said. “You have been very useful - and I like you. Now I can tell you that my agents read the letter in the cigar. The rebel ship was overtaken and destroyed by the space patrol, just a few hours ago.”
Brek Veronar swayed to a giddy weakness.
“Entertain no further apprehensions.” The Astrarch touched his arm. “You will accompany the fleet, in charge of the autosight. We take off in five hours.”
The long black hull of the Warrior Queen lifted on flaring reaction tubes, leading the squadron. Other squadrons moved from the bases on Pallas, Vesta, Thule, and Eros. The Second Fleet came plunging Sunward from its bases on the Trojan planets. Four weeks later, at the rendezvous just within the orbit of Mars, twenty-nine great vessels had come together.
The armada of the Astrarchy moved down upon Earth.
Joining the dictator in his chartroom, Brek was puzzled. “Still I don’t see the reason for such a show of strength,” he said. “Why have you gathered three fourths of your space forces, to crush a handful of plotters?”
“We have to deal with more than a handful of plotters.” Behind the pale mask of the Astrarch’s face, Brek could sense a tension of worry. “Millions of Earthmen have labored for years to prepare for this rebellion. Earth has built a space fleet.”
Brek was astonished. “A fleet?”
“The parts were manufactured secretly, mostly in underground mills,” the Astrarch told him. “The ships were assembled by divers, under the surface of fresh-water lakes. Your old friend, Grimm, is clever and dangerous. We shall have to destroy his fleet, before we can bomb the planet into submission.”
Steadily, Brek met the Astrarch’s eyes. “How many ships?” he asked.
“Six.”
“Then we outnumber them five to one.” Brek managed a confident smile. “Without considering the further advantage of the autosight. It will be no battle at all.”
“Perhaps not,” said the Astrarch, “but Grimm is an able man. He has invented a new type reaction tube, in some regards superior to our own.” His dark eyes were somber. “It is Earthman against Earthman,” he said softly. “And one of you shall perish.”
Day after day, the armada dropped Earthward.
The autosight served also as the eyes of the fleet, as well as the fighting brain. In order to give longer base lines for the automatic triangulations, additional achronic-field pick-ups had been installed upon half a dozen ships. Tight achronic beams brought their data to the immense main instrument, on the Warrior Queen. The autosight steered every ship, by achronic beam control, and directed the fire of its guns.
The Warrior Queen led the fleet. The autosight held the other vessels in accurate line behind her, so that only one circular cross section might be visible to the telescopes of Earth.
The rebel planet was still twenty million miles ahead, and fifty hours at normal deceleration, when the autosight discovered the enemy fleet.
Brek Veronar sat at the curving control table.
Behind him, in the dim-lit vastness of the armored room, bulked the main instrument. Banked thousands of green-painted cases - the intricate cells of the mechanical brain - whirred with geodesic analyzers and integrators. The achronic field pick-ups - sense organs of the brain - were housed in insignificant black boxes. And the web of achronic transmission beams - instantaneous, ultrashort, nonelectromagnetic waves of the subelectronic order - the nerve fibers that joined the busy cells - was quite invisible.
Before Brek stood the twenty-foot cube of the stereoscreen, through which the brain communicated its findings. The cube was black, now, with the crystal blackness of space. Earth, in it, made a long misty crescent of wavering crimson splendor. The Moon was a smaller scimitar, blue with the dazzle of its artificial atmosphere.
Brek touched intricate controls. The Moon slipped out of the cube. Earth grew - and turned. So far had the autosight conquered time and space. It showed the planet’s Sunward side.
Earth filled the cube, incredibly real. The vast white disk of one low-pressure area lay upon the Pacific’s glinting blue. Another, blotting out the winter brown of North America, reached to the bright gray cap of the arctic.
Softly, in the dim room, a gong clanged. Numerals of white fire flickered against the image in the cube. An arrow of red flame pointed. At its point was a tiny fleck of black.
The gong throbbed again, and another black mote came up out of the clouds. A third followed. Presently there were six. Watching, Brek Veronar felt a little stir of involuntary pride, a dim numbness of regret.
Those six vessels were the mighty children of Tony Grimm and Elora, the fighting strength of Earth. Brek felt an aching tenseness in his throat, and tears stung his eyes. It was too bad that they had to be destroyed.
Tony would be aboard one of those ships. Brek wondered how he would look, after twenty years. Did his freckles still show? Had he grown stout? Did concentration still plow little furrows between his blue eyes?
Elora - would she be with him? Brek knew she would. His mind saw the Martian girl, slim and vivid and intense as ever. He tried to thrust away the image. Time must have changed her. Probably she looked worn from the years of toil and danger; her dark eyes must have lost their sparkle.
Brek had to forget that those six little blots represented the lives of Tony and Elora, and the independence of the Earth. They were only six little lumps of matter, six targets for the autosight.
He watched them, rising, swinging around the huge, luminous curve of the planet. They were only six mathematical points, tracing world lines through the continuum, making a geodesic pattern for the analyzers to unravel and the integrators to project against the future-
The gong throbbed again.
Tense with abrupt apprehension, Brek caught up a telephone.
“Give me the Astrarch…. An urgent report…. No, the admiral won’t do…. Gorro, the autosight has picked up the Earth fleet … Yes, only six ships, just taking off from the Sunward face. But there is one alarming thing.”
Brek Veronar was hoarse, breathless. “Already, behind the planet, they have formed a cruising line. The axis extends exactly in our direction. That means that they know our precise position, before they have come into telescopic view. That suggests that Tony Grimm has invented an autosight of his own!”
Strained hours dragged by. The Astrarch’s fleet decelerated, to circle and bombard the mother world, after the battle was done. The Earth ships came out at full normal acceleration.
“They must stop,” the Astrarch said. “That is our advantage. If they go by us at any great velocity, we’ll have the planet bombed into submission before they can return. They must turn back - and then we’ll pick them off.”
Puzzlingly, however, the Earth fleet kept up acceleration, and a slow apprehension grew in the heart of Brek Veronar. There was but one explanation. The Earthmen were staking the life of their planet on one brief encounter.
As if certain of victory!
The hour of battle neared. Tight achronic beams relayed telephoned orders from the Astrarch’s chartroom, and the fleet deployed into battle formation - into the shape of an immense shallow bowl, so that every possible gun could be trained upon the enemy.
The hour - and the instant!
Startling in the huge dim space that housed the autosight, crackling out above the whirring of the achron-integrator, the speaker that was the great brain’s voice counted off the minutes.