XXI.
Maynard looked at the ground, and wondered. It was cold—deathly cold—in spite of the years of the barrier-input. Cold enough to give him hope.
Guy set his crowbar into the grave and pried. The dirt came out in lumps—the same lumps blasted long ago to create the shallow trench. The white wrappings were not soiled; the ground was frozen hard enough to prevent bits of grime from working their way into the soft cloth. The body was stiff and utterly cold beneath the wrappings, and it was more like carrying a log than a human being. But Guy took the exhumed one to the Loki, removed the white wrappings, and snapped on the battery of heat lamps.
Losses made the air grow unbearably hot in the little cabin, but Guy worked woodenly and did not notice. He forced himself to this. The handling of a corpse—for until it showed the sign of life it was a corpse—made Guy's stomach crawl and made his hands feel as though they never would be clean again. Time and again he looked away to keep from screaming aloud.
And when it came time to insert the needle containing superenalin into the body, Guy's fingers went cold and insensitive. The needle did not slide in the way it should, it entered with that dead feeling similar to cutting dead flesh with a dull knife. It sickened him, and after emergence, when the tiny droplet of blood did not come, it brought on that nausea again.
Massage! It was a gruesome thing, this fondling and stroking of cold, stiff limbs. The heat seemed to be doing no good, for Guy could discern no softening of the joints. They creaked and cracked as he moved the arms and legs, and it worried him because he knew the brittleness of frozen flesh. Was he breaking bone and flesh deep within this body?
More—was it worth it?
Guy's mind recoiled and rejected the horror that he felt. This body was no stranger to him. Alive, physical contact would not have been distasteful. Now that it was dead, why did he feel horror?
Alive, it might have fought him because of the liberties he was taking; with no objections to his ministrations possible, why did he feel horror and fear?
It struck Guy as insanely funny and he laughed uproariously. The cabin rocked to the sound of his laughter, and as he stopped, the echo reminded him of the cackle of an idiot. He stopped with indrawn breath, shook his head, and returned to his task.
The body moved perceptibly, and Guy recoiled from the table with the same feeling of horror and fear. This was too much like awakening the dead.
A gasp of indrawn breath came, and the body choked on the volume of air that entered the lungs. Color returned to the cheeks, and the eyes opened, fluttered, and then looked at Guy full and open.
The lips parted.
"Guy!"
"Joan! You're all right?"
"Of course—shouldn't I be?"
"But—"
"That toroid in the sky—what was it?"
"It came from Mephisto."
"Then it is not dangerous?"
"Not when you understand it."
Joan snorted. "If that's the best they can do—we'll lick them easy."
Guy nodded foolishly. How was he going to tell Joan the whole story in short of a lifetime?
She looked around. "This isn't the Orionad. Why did you bring me here?"
"I ... we—"
"Guy!" she came from the table, put her hands on his shoulders, and looked up into his face. "It's been long, hasn't it?"
He nodded.
She searched his face understandingly, comprehended the suffering and worry there, and said: "Tell me."
It came then, all in a burst of words. The entire tale from start to finish with nothing withheld. It took an hour solid, and when Guy finished, Joan looked up and asked:
"You're still going on?"
He nodded, but asked: "Should I?"
"You must. First off, Guy, you are a man alone. That might be fine for you, but life demands that you do your utmost to progress. You know what will happen."
"Ertene and Terra will fight. Ertene will fight to join the System as ruling planet, and Terra will fight to haul Ertene in by brute force. Eventually, Terra will win, partly, and subdue Ertene. Ertene will reply by swerving outward again, and try to continue on the roaming, nomad life. As a last measure, Ertene will hit Sol with a vortex. That will set things off—how, I do not know. Nova, perhaps. Instability, definitely. Or Ertene will hit Terra with a vortex. At any rate, super-vortexes will be hurled back and forth, and Ertene—if she isn't a black ruin—will go on through space with no man alive. Sol will continue to run as a dead, sterile system.
"So long as they are permitted to fight, complete ruin will be the outcome. I must ... I MUST prevent that."
"You must," agreed Joan. "You must be ruthless and calloused. You mustn't hesitate to kill and maim—though it sounds against all nature. Ertene must be chastened—and Ertene must be brought into the System! To let Ertene go will constitute a constant threat to Sol—no constant, but lasting for a hundred years. So long as Ertene can hurl a vortex at Sol, we are endangered. Ertene must be immobilized, and placed under the same necessities—those of keeping Sol alive and stable. Terra must be taught to accept Ertene as an equal.
"And since a three-world system must become interwoven to remain, Terra, Ertene, and Mars will lose their isolationism. But it's your job, Guy. You're the only man who understands. You are the only man who can bring a balance of power to bear. Take it and knit a new system!"
"You'll help?"
Joan smiled. "Naturally." She lifted herself on tiptoe and held him close. "I've always wanted to help, Guy. Anything you say—name it!"
Guy choked.
"You've"—and Guy recalled years ago when Joan said the same words to him—"been lonely, Guy."
Years of loneliness and yearning and heartbreak expended themselves in a matter of minutes, and the long, bitter years dropped away, bringing them right up to the present moment. Then the future promised briefly before they broke apart. They regretted the break, though something unspoken made them stop; they could not seek the future with so much to be done in the present: They must cross this bridge first.
Gradually, the scene took on a busy appearance. Men in suits bustled around the ships, and they rang with the sound of repair and servicing. And across the plain there came a steady stream of men carrying white-swathed bodies, and when six came in, twelve left to continue the work. With progressingly larger numbers at work, the stream of men entering the huge, squat building became a double line, a triple line, and then a sixfold line. Other buildings opened, and the stream continued to expand.
Projectors and turret-mounted MacMillans roved the sky and the detectors went out to their extreme limit.
Technicians worked over Guy's thought-beam, and produced a large one for each ship in the small group. Maynard's fleet would be knit with thought-communications, and no interference would cause them to lose control. Other technicians toyed with the vortex projectors, and though Guy saw no more success here than on Ertene, the amount of activity was higher by far, and in a few weeks the Terrans had passed the most advanced researches of the Ertinians.
A convoy of Terran ships approached, and Guy merely smiled.
"I've been expecting them. Go get 'em, Harrison!"
"Right. They're replacements for this gang?"
"Were."
"Why don't we wake up the gang that was here when you came?"
"You know that. I can't trust 'em. I brought you fellows back—at least you owe me your lives."
"I'll argue that point when I get back. Ships, supplies, and men! We need 'em!"
The little fleet sped out to contact the larger convoy. Unlike the usual Terran procedure, Maynard's fleet spread wide apart, and waited in the dark of space, behind barriers.
It would have been slaughter again. This convoy expected to find its own men awaiting supply and materials. Instead, the vortex projectors spewed.
Out they rolled, and the barriers went down as they passed. Turreted MacMillans whirled, and the invisible energies laced the sky. Torpedoes winked in gouts of flame and the interferers chopped the communications band into uselessness. Maynard's ships fired a second series before the first reached the Terrans, and the Terrans, fighting their own velocity, rolled into the whirling toroids firing their AutoMacs to the last.
Ships rained out of the sky in flaming ruin, cut bright arcs in the sky, and died.
And then it was all over. Massacre it would have been if the vortex projectors had been deadly. The Terran convoy was not prepared to meet a powerful fleet, and it succumbed in a matter of seconds.
Cradling pressors lowered the Terran ships to ground, and Maynard's men took possession.
"Well?" asked Harrison. "Have we got what it takes?"
"Not enough," said Guy glumly. "There was one constellation craft in that bunch—the Leoniad. It's a creaky old crate that uses co-ordinator fire in the turrets instead of autosyncs. Her torpedo tubes are rusty, her generator room reeks, and her drive is one of those constantly variable affairs that never settles down to a smooth run. The Leoniad is a derelict, as far as I'm concerned. The smaller stuff is fine business, though I doubt that they could stand up to a half dozen constellations. We'll fit the old tub up, though, and use her. She's all we have in that class."
"Any chance of getting more?"
"Might raid Ertene. I think it might be easy—Ertene is none too sharp invasionwise. They're armed to the teeth with vortex jobs, though."
"Vortexes aren't deadly."
"A local anaesthetic would be a killer-weapon if you could numb up a man's trigger finger only," grinned Guy. "Might as well be dead as sleeping it off on Ertene."
"I get you. How about raiding Sahara Base?"
"We might duck their mounted stuff. I wish I knew what they are doing with the vortex projectors."
"Let's wake up the commanding officer of the convoy and ask. He'd know."
"Good idea," said Maynard, and gave the order over the phone.
Eventually, the man was brought in. He was indignant, defeated, angry, and anxious about his future in turns, and his emotions changed from one to the other swiftly. He was Sector Commander Neville.
"What is the meaning of this outrage?" he asked. "I know you. You're the renegade, Maynard."
"Stop it!" exploded Harrison. "He is Guy Maynard, and a better man than you and I, Neville."
"You, too, must have turned pirate, commander."
"I'm no pirate. What I'm doing is by sheer choice. Wait until you hear his story, and you may wish to join us."
"Never."
"Never say 'never'," grinned Harrison. "It shows how much you don't know about everything—especially human nature."
"Look, Neville, I want to know what Terra is doing with the vortex gun."
"I'll never tell you."
"I'll tell you, then," smiled Maynard. "Emplacements augmenting the planet-mounted MacMillans are being set up around Sahara Base. Luna is being set up with them, too, since the moon is a natural invasion-springboard. The main cities are being protected, too, and some long-range stuff is being put in the remote spots to stave off any attempt at entry. The triple-mounts in the midships turret of all constellation craft are being changed from MacMillan to vortex, and the fore turret on all cruisers. Destroyers will carry a smaller edition in a semi-mobile mount in the nose, and the fighter craft of the heavier classes are to have vortex projectors in fixed position. The three MacMillans will drop to two, the center being replaced in the lighter ships.
"Oh, and yes, Neville, I mustn't forget the super-sized job that is being erected on Luna for cross-space work. That's a nice, brutal, long-futured thought, Neville, and it can do nothing but bring reprisals."
"That one will not be used except in self-defense—"
"Sky-juice! I only hope that it can be destroyed before it is used. The fools! Can't you realize that Mars is erecting one on Phobos, too?"
Neville blanched. "Hadn't considered it."
"Why not? Why shouldn't they? They're no less intelligent than we are ... don't jump up and down, Neville, they are and you know it ... and they react in about the same fashion. The only thing that has enabled us to stay ahead of Mars is the fact that we can take three times the acceleration standing up. Another item of general interest. Ertene—you've heard of that one—is erecting a projector of super-size, too. Guess where it will be used."
Neville thought, and then asked: "How do you know these things?"
Guy tapped the thought-beam on his belt. "Thought-reading gadget," he said quietly, and then proceeded to read Neville's thoughts to him, saying them word for word as Neville expressed them in his mind.
"Now," said Guy, "Sol is in for trouble. That is, unless we get Ertene in here too. That'll mean invasion. But, Neville, I don't want Ertene overrun like we did on Mephisto. Ertene is like Terra, but its culture is just enough different and its physiology different enough to make a separate entity in the System. They think somewhat differently, too, as you'll see later. But, Neville, getting Ertene here as a prime power will entail much work."
"Why must she be a power?"
"Because this projector is a final weapon. With it, I alone in a tiny fighter, can lay every living thing down on Terra, and then proceed onward to Mars, Ertene, the inhabited planetoids, moons, asteroids, meteors, spacecraft, and anything else I've forgotten to mention. The planets of Sol must be stripped of their militant attitude. Otherwise any progress we might make is stopped. With Mars and Ertene, Sol may have the combination to the long-sought space drive. Centauri lies beyond the horizon, Neville, and we may reach it if we forget our petty quarrels."
"Why couldn't Terra get that herself?"
"Because Ertene and Mars hold certain keys. Neither will work for Terra, either freely or under duress. If this war is fought to the finish, there'll be no great minds left to carry on the research. Remember that."
"What do you intend to do?"
"I intend to conquer them all!"
"You deluded idiot—"
"Look, Neville, I've got this," and Guy slapped the mind instrument. "I've got this," and Guy waved a hand at the field, teeming with its workmen, awakened from the vortex-induced sleep. "And, I've got this!" and Guy pointed outside to the great vortex projector that stood on the ordnance field. "Do you think I can be beaten?"
"Eventually, you will. No dictator ever held out against the entire System."
"I don't intend to hold out. All I want to do," said Guy pointedly, "is to set up this mind-reading, thought-beam instrument on every planet, in every congress, in every voting booth, and in every home! Then we'll see what happens to warmongers, hate-raisers, and petty politicians! The will of the people is to work in peace, and peace they will get when each knows the will of the other, alien races. Fear drives men to fight, Neville, and if any group decides to get up and run things, the vast majority will know it first."
"It'll destroy our privacy," whispered Neville.
"With everyone wearing one, the effects cancel pretty well," said Guy. "Except when the wearer intends to have his thoughts read. And the larger models, set in voting places and congressional groups, will be used to broadcast on frequencies open to anyone who cares to listen. I don't intend that this thing will be used to deprive people of their right to think as they please, but it can be used wisely and well to prevent criminal cliques, ill-advised minorities, and individual criminals."
"It won't work."
"That I want to see for myself. At any rate, either we put a stop to this warfare that will leave Sol lifeless or we will never be able to look up into the sky ourselves."
"Far too much time and wealth is spent," said Neville slowly, "in fighting or preparing for war. The research—could use some of that money. No one has even got the first inkling of a defense against the vortex—you're right, if all have it, it will wind up in death to all. I'll help Maynard."
"Because you think that Terra is unable to accomplish her purpose alone?"
"No," answered Neville. "It's because you are sincere. You let me read your mind—and I know."
"If used for nothing else," grinned Guy, "we can assume right now that any candidate for high office must use this machine. Any who do not will find their qualifications and intentions up for argument. The graft it will kill will be wonderful.”