“No,” Ban Sola frowned and continued shuffling. “You’re not getting nervous, are you?”
“Of course not. Still, if they were to catch us here in this blasted tower, it might not be pleasant.”
“Not a chance. The shadows are making you jumpy.” He dealt the hands.
“Do you know,” said Wen Hasta, studying his cards carefully, “it wouldn’t be so nice if the Viceroy were to get wind of this, either. I imagine he wouldn’t deal lightly with offenders of the Loarists, as a matter of policy. Back on Sirius, where I served before I was shifted, the scum-”
“Scum, all right,” grunted Ban Sola. “They breed like flies and fight each other like mad bulls. Look at the creatures!” He turned his cards downward and grew argumentative. “I mean, look at them scientifically and impartially. What are they? Only mammals! Mammals that can think, in a way; but mammals just the same. That’s all.”
“I know. Did you ever visit one of the Human worlds?”
Ban Sola smiled, “I may, pretty soon.”
“Furlough?” Wen Hasta registered polite astonishment.
“Furlough, my scales. With my ship! And with guns shooting!”
“What do you mean?” There was a sudden glint in Wen Hasta’s eyes.
Ban Sola’s grin grew mysterious. “This isn’t supposed to be known, even among us officers, but you know how things leak out.”
Wen Hasta nodded, “I know.” Both had lowered their voices instinctively.
“Well. The Second Drive will be on, now, any time.”
“No!”
“Fact! And we’re starting right here. By Vega, the Viceregal Palace is buzzing with nothing else. Some of the officers have even started a lottery on the exact date of the first move. I’ve got a hundred credits at twenty to one myself. But then, I drew only to the nearest week. You can get a hundred and fifty to one, if you’re nervy enough to pick a particular day.”
“But why here on this Galaxy-forsaken planet?”
“Strategy on the part of the Home Office.” Ban Sola leaned forward. “The position we’re in now has us facing a numerically superior enemy hopelessly divided amongst itself. If we can keep them so, we can take them over one by one. The Human Worlds would just naturally rather cut their own throats than co-operate with each other.”
Wen Hasta grinned agreement, “That’s typical mammalian behavior for you. Evolution must have laughed when she gave a brain to an ape.”
“But Earth has particular significance. It’s the center of Loarism, because the Humans originated here. It corresponds to our own Vegan system.”
“Do you mean that? But you couldn’t! This little two-by-four flyspeck?”
“That’s what they say. I wasn’t here at the time, so I wouldn’t know. But anyway, if we can destroy Earth, we can destroy Loarism, which is centered here. It was Loarism, the historians say, that united the Worlds against us at the end of the First Drive. No Loarism; the last fear of enemy unification is gone; and victory is easy.”
“Damned clever! How are we going to go about it?”
“Well, the word is that they’re going to pack up every last Human on Earth and scatter them through the subject worlds. Then we can remove everything else on Earth that smells of the Mammals and make it an entirely Lhasinuic world.”
“But when?”
“We don’t know; hence the lottery. But no one has placed his bet at a period more than two years in the future.”
“Hurrah for Vega! I’ll give you two to one I riddle a Human cruiser before you do, when the time comes.”
“Done,” cried Ban Sola. “I’ll put up fifty credits.”
They rose to touch fists in token and Wen Hasta grinned at his chronometer, “Another minute and we’ll have an even thousand credits coming to us. Poor Pirat For. He’ll groan. Let’s go now; more would be extortionate.”
There was low laughter as the two Lhasinu left, long cloaks swishing softly behind them. They did not notice the slightly darker shadow hugging the wall at the head of the stairs, though they almost brushed it as they passed. Nor did they sense the burning eyes focused upon them as they descended noiselessly.
Loara Broos Porin jerked to his feet with a sob of relief as he saw the figure of Filip Sanat stumble across the hall toward him. He ran to him eagerly, grasping both hands tightly.
“What kept you, Filip? You don’t know what wild thoughts have passed through my head this past hour. If you had been gone another five minutes, I would have gone mad for sheer suspense and uncertainty. But what’s wrong?”
It took several moments for Loara Broos’ wild relief to subside sufficiently to note the other’s trembling hands, his disheveled hair, his feverishly-glinting eyes; but when it did, all his fears returned.
He watched Sanat in dismay, scarcely daring to press his question for fear of the answer. But Sanat needed no urging. In short, jerky sentences he related the conversation he had overheard and his last words trailed into a despairing silence.
Loara Broos’ pallor was almost frightening, and twice he tried to talk with no success other than a few hoarse gasps. Then, finally, “But it is the death of Loarism! What is to be done?”
Filip Sanat laughed, as men laugh when they are at last convinced that nothing remains to laugh at. “What can be done? Can we inform the Central Council? You know only too well how helpless they are. The various Human governments? You can imagine how effective those divided fools would be.”
“But it can’t be true! It simply can’t be!”
Sanat remained silent for seconds, and then his face twisted agonizedly and in a voice thick with passion, he shouted, “I won’t have it. Do you hear? It shan’t be! I’ll stop it!”
It was easy to see that he had lost control of himself; that wild emotion was driving him. Porin, large drops of perspiration on his brow, grasped him about the waist, “Sit down, Filip, sit down! Are you going crazy?”
“No!” With a sudden push, he sent Porin stumbling backwards into a sitting position, while the Flame wavered and flickered madly in the rush of air, “I’m going sane. The time for idealism and compromise and subservience is gone! The time for force has come! We will fight and, by Space, we will win!”
He was leaving the room at a dead run.
Porin limped after, “Filip! Filip!” He stopped at the doorway in frightened despair. He could go no further. Though the Heavens fell, someone must guard the Flame.
But-but what was Filip Sanat going to do? And through Porin’s tortured mind flickered visions of a certain night, five hundred years before, when a careless word, a blow, a shot, had lit a fire over Earth that was finally drowned in Human blood.
Loara Paul Kane was alone that night. The inner office was empty; the dim, blue light upon the severely simple desk the only illumination in the room. His thin face was bathed in the ghastly light, and his chin buried musingly between his hands.
And then there was a crashing interruption as the door was flung open and a disheveled Russell Tymball knocked off the restraining hands of half a dozen men and catapulted in. Kane whirled in dismay at the intrusion and one hand flew up to his throat as his eyes widened in apprehension. His face was one startled question.
Tymball waved his arm in a quieting gesture. “It’s all right. Just let me catch my breath.” He wheezed a bit and seated himself gently before continuing, “Your catalyst has turned up, Loara Paul-and guess where. Here on Earth! Here in New York! Not half a mile from where we’re sitting now!”
Loara Paul Kane eyed Tymball narrowly, “Are you mad?”
“Not so you can notice it. I’ll tell you about it, if you don’t mind turning on a light or.two. You look like a ghost in the blue.” The room whitened under the glare of Atomos, and Tymball continued, “Femi and I were returning from the meeting. We were passing the Memorial when it happened, and you can thank Fate for the lucky coincidence that led us to the right spot at the right moment.
“As we passed, a figure shot out the side entrance, jumped on the marble steps in front, and shouted, ‘Men of Earth!’ Everyone turned to look-you know how filled Memorial Sector is at eleven-and inside of two seconds, he had a crowd.”
“Who was the speaker, and what was he doing inside the Memorial? This is Wednesday night, you know.”
“Why,” Tymball paused to consider, “now that you mention it, he must have been one of the two Guardians. He was a Loarist-you couldn’t mistake the tunic. He wasn’t Terrestrial, either!”
“Did he wear the yellow orb?”
“No.”
“Then I know who he was. He’s Porin’s young friend. Go ahead.”
“There he stood!” Tymball was warming to his task. “He was some twenty feet above street level. You have no idea what an impressive figure he made with the glare of the Luxites lighting his face. He was handsome, but not in an athletic, brawny way. He was the ascetic type, if you know what I mean. Pale, thin face, burning eyes, long, brown hair.
“And when he spoke! It’s no use describing it; in order to appreciate it really, you would have to hear him. He began telling the crowd of the Lhasinuic designs; shouting what I had been whispering. Evidently, he had gotten them from a good source, for he went into details-and how he put them! He made them sound real and frightening. He frightened me with them; had me standing there scared blue at what he was saying; and as for the crowd, after the second sentence, they were hypnotized. Every one of them had had ‘Lhasinuic Menace’ drilled into them over and over again, but this was the first time they listened-actually listened .