"After it!" I shouted and led the way at a dead run.
We caught up with it two decks down where it had been stopped by a closed door—but not stopped for long. The thermal lance in the Thing's nose burned a quick hole through the metal and it was off again. When we reached the engine room it had almost eaten its way through this thicker door and there was just time to throw the door open as it went through. It zoomed once around the room as though getting its bearings, so small and fast it was almost impossible to follow, then it dived.
Right at the warpdrive generator where it exploded in a puff of black smoke.
"A harmless smoke charge," I said. "To be replaced in field operation by high explosive, more than enough to destroy the warpdrive generator, yet small enough not to cause any other damage. A humane weapon indeed."
"You're mad."
"Only at the Cliaand and the gray men for pursuing this futile war. If we can go back for that drink now I'll tell you how it is going to be stopped."
Comfortably seated, throat cooled, I explained.
"I personally polished off the warpdrive generators in nine of the Cliaand ships, just to see if it could be done and if there would be any unusual problems in ship design or construction. There were none. Cliaandian ships are just like other ships, only more so since they like a good deal of uniformity which makes our job that much easier. The Thing has been designed to do that job. The Thing operator can sit at his ease outside of a spaceport, watching the Cliaand ships through high powered glasses. When the observed ship opens its port the Thing strikes. The operator must merely aim it, feed in the type of ship, and start it on its way. The Thing has a molecular level memory bank and computer circuitry. It zeroes in on the ship at high speed, finds the port and enters and then, using its programmed knowledge of the vessel's interior, it makes its way to the engine room, stopping for nothing. Where it blows up the warpdrive generator. End of the Cliaand invasion."
"End of one warpdrive generator," Inskipp said, a sneer in his voice. "They order up another one and that is that."
"That is not that. Generators are complex and not easy to build. There are very few factories that turn them out because most people are satisfied to buy them from someone else. I am sure the Cliaand have at least one factory, but that can be found and knocked out from space."
"So they get one from the warehouse."
"There is a limit to the number they can have, and quite soon the warehouse will be empty. Because we are going to have agents on every planet now ruled by the Cliaand and they are going to blow up every warpdrive generator on every ship on those planets. We won't have to go anywhere near the home planet. The warpdrive will be knocked out of cargo ships, war ships, any and all within the Cliaand area of control. Nor will they be able to get any from the outside since this is one embargo that it will be easy for the Corps and the cooperating planets to enforce. End of an empire."
"How?"
"Think, Inskipp, age couldn't have withered your brain as much as your leathery hide. Angelina gave me the clue. The Cliaandians must keep expanding or perish. They don't have enough food or raw materials on their single planet to carry on this kind of continual expansion. So they conquer a planet, put it to work on their behalf, then restored and re-supplied go on to bigger and better things. Only not any more. They still have the planets and the materials—but what good are they if they can't be transported to where they are needed? The expansion will have to stop, and as the ships grow scarce they will have to pull back. Further and further back until they are on their home planet again and that will be the end of that. Any single planet can support itself with raw materials and food, at least enough to survive. But an empire cannot survive with its trade arteries cut. I give them a year, no more, before Cliaand is just another backwater planet with a lot of guys in uniforms and out of jobs. When it is all over normal trade can be started again. A year at the outside. What do you think."
"I think you did it again, my boy, as I knew you would."
He beamed at me and I winked at Angelina and we drank to that.
Chapter 22
We were standing at the inner lock, ready to disembark from the spaceship, when one at the pursers hurried over and handed me a psigram. Angelina blasted it with a withering look.
"Tear it up." she said. "If that is from foul Inskipp canceling the one little vacation we have ever had…"
"Relax," I said, glancing through it quickly. "Our holiday is still safe. "This is from Taze…"
"If that topheavy hussy is still chasing you she is in for trouble."
"Have no fear, my love. The communication is of a political nature. The results of the first election to be held since the Cliaandian withdrawal are in. The men's Konsolosluk party has been swept from office and the girls are back at the helm. Taze has been appointed Minister of War, so I don't think future invasion will be as easy as the last. The psigram further states that we have both been awarded the Order of the Blue Mountains, First Class, and there will be much ceremony and medal pinning when next we get to Burada."
"Just see you don't try going there on your own. Slippery Jim."
I sighed as the massive outer lock of the spaceship ground open and the militant oompah of band music was carried in by the outside air. The sky was clear and empty of anything other than the puffy white clouds and a copter towing a banner that read 'WELCOME WELCOME'.
"Very nice," I said.
"Urgh urgh," Bolivar said, or something like that, or was it James who had spoken? They were hard to tell apart and Angelina took a very antipathetic view towards my suggestion that we paint a B on one little forehead and J on the other. Just for a while. She bent over their tiny forms in the robopram, tucking in blankets and doing other unessential maternal things. Only I knew that she had a gun in her girdle and a knife in the nappies. My Angelina is just as motherly as any female tiger: she takes care of her cubs but also keeps her claws sharp just in case. Pity the poor kidnapper who tried to swipe the diGriz babies!
"That's an improvement over the usual rattling escalator," I said, pointing to the platform outside.
A shipyard repair stage had been polished and decorated with flags and turned into a passenger elevator. It not only held all the people disembarking but there was plenty of room left over for the military band. Who were now thumping and trumpeting and generally having a good time. We strolled out onto the platform and the robopram rolled after us. James—or was it Bolivar?—tried to hurl himself out of it but a padded tentacle pushed him back to the pillows.
"It doesn't look so bad," Angelina said, looking out across the spaceport to the city while the stage slowly descended. "I can't understand what you were complaining about."
"Let's say the reception was a bit different last time I was here. Isn't that a pleasant sight?"
I pointed to the row upon row of abandoned spaceships, the streaks of rust on their sides visible even from here.
"Very nice," she said, not looking, tucking in an infant that the robopram had already done an excellent job on. Like all new fathers I was more than a little jealous of the attention lavished on the kiddies, and I looked forward to the next joint assignment when I might get a little closer to center stage in her affections. I was being broken to the marriage harness and, despite my basic loathings and thrashings, was beginning to enjoy it.
"Isn't that dangerous?" Angelina asked as we reached the ground and the double row of soldiers of the honor guard snapped to attention with a resounding crash and clatter. There must have been at least a thousand of them and each one was armed with a gaussrifle.
"Weapons have been incapacitated, that was part of the agreement."
"But can we trust them?"