Then a blip appeared. It was at the most extreme limit of the radar"s range. A ship had come out of overdrive near the fourth planetary orbit of this solar system.
Bors and the yeoman computer-operator figured its distance to six places of decimals. Bors set the microsecond timer. The _Horus_ went into low-speed overdrive and out again. Then the electron telescope revealed a stubby, rotund cargo-ship, about to land on Mekin.
Bors swore. It would be days before this tub reached Mekin on solar-system drive. But it must not report that an armed vessel had inspected it in remoteness.
"We haul alongside," said Bors angrily. "Boarding-parties ready in the s.p.a.ce-boats."
Another wrenching flicker into overdrive and through breakout without pause. The cargo-boat was within ten miles.
"Calling cargo-boat!" rasped Bors, in what would be the arrogant tones of a Mekinese naval officer hailing a mere civilian ship. "Identify yourself!"
A voice answered apologetically, "_Cargo-ship_ Empress, _sir, bound from Loral to Mekin with frozen foods._"
"Cut your drive," snapped Bors. "Stand by for inspection! Muster your crews. There"s a criminal trying to get ash.o.r.e on Mekin. We"ll check your hands. Acknowledge!"
"_Yes, sir_," said the apologetic voice. "_Obeying, sir._"
Bors fretted. The s.p.a.ce-boats left the _Horus"s_ side. One clamped onto the airlock of the rounded, bulging tramp-ship. The second lifeboat hovered nearby. The first boat broke contact and the second hooked on.
The second boat broke contact. Both came back to the _Horus_.
The screen before Bors lighted up. One of his own crewmen nodded out of it.
"_All clear, sir_," said his voice briskly. "_They behaved like lambs, sir. No arms. We"ve locked them in a cargo hold._"
"You know what to do now," said Bors.
"_Yes, sir. Off._"
Ten miles away the cargo-boat swung itself about. Suddenly it was gone.
It was on the way to Glamis and the fleet.
Another hour of watching. Another blip. It was another cargo-carrier like the first. As the other had done, it meekly permitted itself to be boarded by what it believed were mere naval ratings of the Mekinese s.p.a.ce-fleet, searching for a criminal who might be on board. Like the first ship, it was soon undeceived. Again like the first, it vanished from emptiness, and it would be heading for the fleet in its monotonous circling of Glamis.
The third blip, though, was a light cruiser. The _Horus_ appeared from nowhere close beside it and its communicator began to scream in gibberish. It would be an official report, scrambled and taped, to be transmitted to ground on the first instant there was hope of its reception.
"Fire one," said Bors. "The skipper there is on his toes."
He watched bleakly as the _Horus"s_ missile arched in its impossible trajectory, as the light cruiser flung everything that could be gotten out to try to stop it, while its transmitter shrieked gibberish to the stars.
There was a blinding flash of light. Then nothing.
"He got out maybe fifteen seconds of transmission," said Bors somberly, "which may or may not be picked up from this distance, and may or may not tell anything. He got a tape ready while he was in overdrive, with plenty of time for the job. My guess is that he"d take at least fifteen seconds to identify his ship, give her code number, her skipper, and such things. I hope so...."
But for minutes he was irresolute. He"d send his own minutely detailed report back to Glamis on the second captured ship. He did not need to return to report in person. He hadn"t yet sent back provisions enough for the intended voyage of the fleet. The solar system of Mekin was an especially well-stocked hunting-ground for such marauders as Bors and his crew declared themselves to be--so long as word did not get to ground on Mekin.
But it did not get down. From time to time--at intervals of a few hours--specks appeared in emptiness. Mekin monopolized the off-planet trade of its satellite world. There would be many times the s.p.a.ce-traffic here that would be found off any other planet in the Mekinese empire.
One ship got to ground unchallenged. By pure accident it came out of overdrive within half a million miles of Mekin. To have attacked it would have been noted. But he got two more cargo-ships. Then he found the _Horus_ alongside a pa.s.senger-ship. But it couldn"t be allowed to ground, to report that it had been stopped by an armed ship. A prize-crew took it off to Glamis.
Bors made a formal announcement to his crew. "I think," he told them over the all-speaker circuit, "that we got the ship which could have reported our action off Meriden. I"m sure we"ve sent four shiploads of food back to the fleet, besides the pa.s.senger-ship we"d rather have missed. But there"s still something to be done. To confuse Mekin and keep it busy, and therefore off Kandar"s neck, we have to start trouble elsewhere. From now on we are pirates pure and simple."
And he headed the _Horus_ for the planet Ca.s.sis, which was another victim of the Mekinese. It was a rocky, mountainous world with many mines. Mekin depended on it for metal in vast quant.i.ties. The _Horus_ hovered over it and sent down a sardonic challenge. One missile came up in defiance. But it was badly aimed and Bors ignored it. Then voices called to him, sharp with excitement. He heard shots and shouting and a voice said feverishly that rebels on Ca.s.sis, who had been fighting in the streets, had rushed a transmitter to welcome the enemies of Mekin.
Bors had one light cruiser and merely a minimum crew for it. He couldn"t be of much help to insurrectionists. Then he heard artillery-fire over the communicator, and voices gasped that the Mekinese garrison was charging out of its highly-fortified encampment. Bors sent down a missile to break the back of the counter-attack. Then the communicator gave off the sound of gunfire and men in battle, and presently yells of triumph.
He took the _Horus_ away. Its arrival and involvement in the revolt was pure accident. It was no part of any thought-out plan. But he was wryly relieved when he had convinced himself that Mekin needed the products of this world too much to exterminate its population with fusion-bombs.
More days of travel in overdrive tedium. Bors was astounded and appalled. Interference here would only make matters worse. The _Horus_ went on.
There was a cargo-ship aground on Dover, and the _Horus_ threatened bombs and a s.p.a.ce-boat went down and brought it up. That ship also went away to Glamis where the fleet was acc.u.mulating an inconvenient number of prisoners. The fact that the capture of this ship only added to that number made Bors realize that King Humphrey would be especially disturbed about the pa.s.sengers on the liner sent back from Mekin. Unless they were murdered, sooner or later they would reveal the facts about the Fleet. And King Humphrey was a highly conscientious man.
There was dissention even on Dover. The landing-party was cheered from the edge of the s.p.a.ceport. Bors could not understand. He tried to guess what was going on in the Mekinese empire. He could not know whether or not disaster had yet struck Kandar. He could only hope that there were ships lurking near it, ready to use the recent technical combat improvements against any single Mekinese ship that might appear, so no report would be carried back. But it seemed to him that utter and complete catastrophe was inevitable.
He reflected unhappily about Tralee, and wondered what the Pretender, his uncle, really thought about his loosing of chemical-explosive missiles against puppet government buildings there. He found himself worrying again about the truck drivers who"d warned his men of b.o.o.by-traps in the supplies they delivered. He hoped they hadn"t been caught.
The _Horus_ arrived at Deccan, and called down the savage message of challenge.
There came a tumultuous, roaring reply.
"_Captain Bors!_" cried a voice from the ground exultantly. "_Land and welcome! We didn"t hope you"d come here, but you"re a thousand times welcome! We"ve smashed the garrison here, Captain! We rose days ago and we hold the planet! We"ll join you! Come to ground, sir! We can supply you!_"
Bors went tense all over. He"d been called by name! If he was known by name on _this_ world--twenty light-years from Mekin and thirty-five from Kandar--then everything was lost.
"Can you send up a s.p.a.ce-boat?" he asked in a voice he did not recognize. "I"d like to have your news."
It must be a trap. It was possible that there"d been revolt on Deccan; he"d found proof of rebellion elsewhere. There"d been claims of revolt on Ca.s.sis, but he hadn"t been suspicious then. He"d sent down a missile to help the self-proclaimed rebels there. Now he wondered desperately if he"d been tricked there as, it was all too likely, he would be here.
There"d been reported fighting on Avino. There was cheering for his men on Dover, and he might have landed there. But there were too many coincidences, far too many.
He waited, fifty thousand miles high, with the ship at combat-alert. He felt cold all over. Somehow, news had preceded him. It was garbled truth, but there was enough to make his spine feel like ice.
He spoke over the all-speaker hook-up, in a voice he could not keep steady by any effort of will.
"All hands attention," he said heavily. "I just called ground. We have had a reply calling me by name. You will see the implication. It looks like somehow the Mekinese have managed to send word ahead of us. They"ve found out that no one can stand against us. They know we have new and deadly weapons. Probably there have been orders given to lure us to ground by the pretense of a successful revolt. It would be hoped that we can be fooled to the point where we will land and our ship can be captured _undestroyed_.--That"s the way it looks."
He swallowed, with difficulty.
"If that"s so," he said after an instant, "you can guess what"s been done about Kandar. The grand fleet was a.s.sembled on Mekin. It could have gone to Kandar...."
He swallowed again. Then he said savagely, "Well make sure first. If the worst has happened we"ll take our fleet and head for Mekin and pour down every ounce of atomic explosive we"ve got. We may not be able to turn its air to poison, but if there are survivors, they won"t celebrate what they did to Kandar!"
He clicked off. His fists clenched. He paced back and forth in the control room. He almost did not wait to make sure. Almost. But he had never seen a Mekinese fighting man face to face. He"d gone into exile with his uncle when that unhappily reasonable man let Tralee surrender rather than be bombed to depopulation. He"d served in the Kandarian navy without ever managing to be in any port when a Mekinese ship was in.
He"d fought in the battle off Kandar, he"d destroyed a Mekinese cruiser off Tralee, another in the Mekinese system itself and a squadron off Meriden. But he had never seen a Mekinese fighting-man face to face.
Filled with such hatred as he felt, he meant to do so now.
A s.p.a.ce-boat came up from the ground. The _Horus_ trained weapons on it.
Bors painstakingly arranged for its occupants to board the _Horus_ in s.p.a.ce-suits, which could not conceal bombs.
There were six men in the s.p.a.ce-boat. They came into the _Horus"s_ control room and he saw that they were young, almost boys. When they learned that he was Captain Bors, they looked at him with shining, admiring, worshipping eyes. It could not be a trick. It could not be a trap. He was incredulous.