By the Same Author

Earthbound The Star Seekers Stadium Beyond the Stars

Spacemen, Go Ho me

Milton Lesser

HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON New York

COPYRIGHT © 1961 BY MILTON LESSER

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

Published simultaneously in Canada by Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, Limited.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-9046

95212-0111 Printed in the United States of America

This book is for Clara and Sam Lang

Contents

PACE

1.  The Last Spaceship                                                                       11

2.     The Edict                                                                                         16

3.   Secret Spacemen                                                                            25

4.   Captain Bollinger                                                                          32

5.   Escape!                                                                                             45

6.    77te TfaiJ of a Spaceman                                                         55

7.     Freya                                                                                                 69

8.   Land o/ the Midniglit Sun                                                       78

9.      Peace Plans                                                                                     89

10.     War Plans                                                                                   104

11. Treachery!                                                                                     113

12.     Mexico Again                                                                               125

13.   Return to Space                                                                           138

14.   Battle in Space                                                                             151

15.   Prisoners                                                                                       159

16.   Mutiny!                                                                                          171

17.     Canopus                                                                                         185

18.   The Star Brain                                                                              195

19.     Home 75 fne Spaceman                                                          211

Spacemen, Qo Mome

Chapter / The Last Spaceship

WHILE the moonship "Tycho III" was settling slowly toward the landing pit swallowing the fiery exhaust of its braking rockets, Andy Marlow had his first look in more than a year at the planet Earth.

What he saw was a spaceport, the New Mexico Spaceport to be exact. Andy felt a lump in his throat. He couldn't talk, even though he knew his friend Turk stood by the viewport at his side. It should have been different, Andy thought. It should have been so different.

He could almost conjure in his mind an image of what it might have been like—the proud launching gantries gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight, the doors of a dozen firing pits rolled back to reveal the sleek noses of as many space-bound ships, and far below at the edge of the tarmac a band playing the "Interstellar March" in salute to the space cadets returning from their training at Luna Academy.

Instead, Andy saw the rusting skeletons of the big

gantries that hadn't been used in a year, the tightly

ii

shut doors of the firing pits, the broken hulks of a few old spacetubs littering the tarmac like the bones of prehistoric monsters, and a crowd of Earth citizens milling about where the band should have been.

Turk punched his shoulder. "Well, come on," he said, "snap out of it. At least we're home. Aren't you glad to see Earth again?"

"Are you?" Andy asked.

Turk scowled. Like Andy Marlow, he was eighteen years old. He had been born Backy Ayoub in Istanbul, Turkey, and the nickname Turk had stuck with him during the first—and only—year at Luna Academy. Turk was short, dark, stocky, and very wide across the shoulders. His heavy body always seemed on the verge of bursting out of the gray jumper that was the Academy uniform. His dark eyes were intense.

"I guess I'm not so glad to see Earth again," he said finally. "Not like this."

By contrast, Andy Marlow was tall, fair-haired, and lean. He had pale, gray-blue eyes which, even now at the age of eighteen, had laugh-wrinkles radiating from their corners. But, as "Tycho III" settled with hardly a bump in the landing pit, Andy wasn't laughing. He tried to think of the future, but it was a blank; he found himself wondering if he would ever even smile again.

"Anybody waiting for you?" he asked Turk. "There's no one who'd care whether I came back to Earth or shipped out to the Milky Way."

The Last Spaceship                                                                                       13

Andy didn't answer. No one would ship out again, ever. "Tycho III" was the last Earth ship to return home. By interstellar edict, space was now forever closed to Earthmen.

"Say," Turk said, trying to break the gloom of their thoughts, "don't you have a brother who's a spaceman waiting for you?"

"He was a spaceman," Andy corrected. There were no spacemen now, just earthbound exiles. "I don't know where he is."

"Maybe they can tell you at the Placement Center in White Sands."

"Maybe."

Andy continued to stare out the viewport. He could see nothing but the sheer walls of the landing pit now.

"You like the view or something?" Turk said.

"What? Oh, don't mind me."

Andy was delaying until the last possible instant the moment when he would step out of "Tycho III" 's airlock. Probably, he would never set foot inside a spaceship again; no Earthman would. Earth's brief two hundred years in space were now history, ancient history.

"Attention!" an amplified voice blared. "Attention! All Cadets assemble at the aft airlock for debarkation! All Cadets to the aft airlock!"

Andy heard the sound of magnet-sheathed boots clomping through "Tycho III" 's narrow companion-ways. Like all the rest, it would be a sound he would try to remember. Or, he wondered, would he be better off forgetting it, forgetting all of it?

He knew he never could do that.

With Turk alongside, he went to the airlock.

Most of the other Cadets already had gathered there. The executive officer, an ensign named Mac-Ready, made a brief speech:

"Men, I don't have to tell you we're returning to Earth for good. I don't have to tell you that though you've all been trained as spacemen, that's something you'll never be. But all your ex-officers at the Academy, from Superintendent Archer on down, expect you to behave like spacemen. You'll see a lot of unpleasantness and ugliness; people will blame you for what happened. Though most of them never would have gone to space anyway, there isn't a man on Earth who wanted the space lanes closed to us. And they'll hold you responsible." MacReady's eyes shifted from one Cadet face to another. "That's all. Good luck to all of you."

MacReady's voice broke. Andy wondered how many times the exec had had to make that same speech to returning Cadets.

With Turk, Andy followed the other Cadets through the airlock and up the pit stairs to ground level. The first thing he saw at the top, at the edge of the tarmac, was a cordon of police. Their faces were set grimly. They stood in close ranks, shoulder to shoulder. They looked as if they expected trouble.

A crowd of civilians pressed them from behind.

Andy saw heads bobbing, faces appearing over the police cordon.

"Go back to the moon!" a man shouted. "We don't want you here."

"Traitors!" someone else cried.

"Cadets they call themselves. Troublemakers. . . ."

Someone threw a stone. A Cadet in front of Andy cried out and stumbled. The police formed two lines at the edge of the tarmac, and the Cadets ran for it.

Andy felt too numb to be dismayed by their homecoming.

Chapter 2 The ma

"NAME?" asked the machine.

"Ayoub, Backy."

"Age?" asked the machine.

"Eighteen . . . and a half," Turk replied.

"Year at the Academy?"

"First year," Turk said, a little truculently.

"You wish to remain in the United States of North America?"

Turk looked at Andy, who shrugged.

"I don't know yet," Turk said.

"Any family?"

"No."

"Place of birth?"

Turk told the machine, "Istanbul, Turkey."

Andy hardly heard the questions as the reception-mech rattled them off from its voice box. His turn would come next, he knew, and he was impatient to get the formalities over with here at the Placement Center.

He felt, suddenly, better than he had at any time

16

since leaving the moon. He didn't know why, but somewhere between the spaceport and White Sands City itself the mood of hopelessness which he had carried like a heavy weight on his shoulders had left him. For the first time he felt curiosity about the future. There was a future for him somewhere on Earth, there had to be. And his brother Frank, whose recommendation had sent Andy to Luna Academy and who had returned home a few months ago with the other Space Captains from one of Earth's far-flung interstellar bases, his brother Frank would help him find it.

Wouldn't they know, here at the Placement Center, where Frank was?

Andy became aware that the reception-mech was questioning him. He answered the name-rank-and-serial-number questions automatically. Then the machine asked:

"Do you want work or further schooling?"

"Schooling?" Andy echoed the word. "In space-manship?"

"Not in spacemanship. At one of Earth's universities."

"I don't know, I haven't given it much thought," Andy admitted. "I'd like to contact my brother. He was a spaceman. Would you have his records here somewhere?"

"Name?"

"Frank Marlow."

"Marlow, Frank," the machine said, and then there was silence. Andy stared at the faceless box of the machine, at the grid from which its mechanical voice issued. He could almost picture the electronic tape inside the box that filed data for the machine.

Finally words came from the voice box: "Cadet Marlow, Captain Strayer will see you personally."

Andy was surprised. Captain Strayer, he knew, was in charge of the Placement Center. "I just wanted to find out where my brother was," he said.

"Captain Strayer will see you."

Turk, who had seemed on the verge of inheriting the bad mood Andy had abandoned, brightened. "Hey now," he said. "We get to see the big boss himself. How about that?"

The machine said, "Captain Strayer will see Cadet Marlow only."

"We're together," Andy said simply.

Another pause.Then, "Very well. Both of you."

Moments later the two Cadets were walking down a wide hall where other new arrivals were entering the little cubbies of the placement specialists.

"Do you know who Captain Strayer is?" Turk asked.

"Sure. He opened up the star trail to Fomalhaut. He's one of the most famous spacemen around."

"Ex-spacemen," Turk said glumly, and Andy had the feeling that somehow they had switched attitudes.

They reached the end of the hall.

Turk was staring down at his boots. Andy took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. He could still act like a Cadet, he decided.

"Here it is," Andy said, and he knocked on the door that bore Captain Lambert Strayer's name. "Come in!"

In a bare, functional office, Lambert Strayer sat behind a large uniplast desk. He looked younger than Andy had expected. lie was tall and ramrod straight, with a shock of white hair and piercing china-blue eyes. His skin was darkly bronzed by long years of exposure to the radiation that had seeped through the hulls of ships under his command. His smile was warm.

"Did they give you a rough time at the 'port?"

"Not too bad, sir," Andy said. "Our exec told us to expect it. The police herded us on a bus and . . . here we are."

Strayer stood up and shook hands with both of them. "You'll be Mariow," he told Andy. It wasn't a question. "You look like your brother, son. We shipped out together to . . . let me see . . . Deneb and Arcturus. Frank was my exec on the Arcturan expedition. I never served with a better man."

"Thank you, sir."

"Well, sit down, boys. Tell me, what are your

plans?"

"We don't exactly have any, sir," Turk admitted.

Captain Strayer shook his head philosophically. "It's usually that way," he said. "You boys have been trained for space. All your lives you've been, well, pointing in one direction . . . outbound. And then along came the Edict."

"Isn't there a chance, any kind of chance at all," Andy asked, "that Earth will be allowed into space again?"

Captain Strayer shook his head, this time not philosophically but decisively. "Not after the Edict. Not in our lifetime. Not if the Star Brain has its way." He shrugged. "And of course it will. It always has. Who are we to complain? We're just men of flesh and blood. We're not infallible and sacrosanct, like the Star Brain."

Andy wondered if he detected any sarcasm in Captain Strayer's tone. He couldn't be sure.

Turk protested, "Captain Reed Ballinger didn't take the Star Brain's decision lying down. He complained."

Captain Strayer scowled. When the expression of warm welcome on his face changed so suddenly, something of the man's power was revealed to Andy. Captain Strayer would make you proud if you were his friend, he decided, but he'd make you quake if you were his enemy.

"Don't tell me you expect me to defend Ballinger?" Strayer said tonelessly.

"Well," Turk said, shuffling his feet, "the way we heard it on Luna. . . ."

Strayer leaned forward. His intense eyes shifted from Andy's face to Turk's and back again. "If it wasn't for Reed Ballinger, we'd still be in space. Make no mistake about that."

"But he. . . ." Turk protested.

"As you know, Earth and Capella were contesting for the mineral rights to an uninhabited planet in the Cygni System. The dispute was brought before the Star Brain, and it decided in favor of Capella. Make no mistakes about that, either. The Star Brain's decision is objective. It has to be."

"A machine . . . telling men what to do," Turk said.

"A machine," Strayer shot back at him, "developed with all the scientific skills of humanity and the other intelligent races in the Galaxy. A machine developed for one purpose only: to keep the peace in the Galaxy. Reed Ballinger chose to ignore that."

"And bombed the Star Brain," Andy said.

"Yes, and bombed the Star Brain."

"He did it for Earth," Turk grumbled. "He didn't think the Star Brain's decision was fair to Earth."

Strayer shook his head. "It had to be fair, by objective standards. That was the way it had been built. And Ballinger didn't do what he did for Earth. Ballinger was working for a group of business enterprises that was going to develop the Cygni planet. If they'd been allowed to, Reed Ballinger would have been a rich man. That was why he bombed the Star Brain."

"With an Earth ship," Andy said. Turk didn't say anything.

"Right.With an Earth ship under his command. Fortunately, the Star Brain was damaged but not destroyed."

"Fortunately?" Turk asked.

"Of course fortunately. The Star Brain's one function is to keep the peace. What if Ballinger had decided, after bombing the Brain, to bomb Capella as well? The point is, boys, you can't take the law into your own hands. Ballinger tried. When the Star Brain was repaired, it passed the Edict. Thanks to Reed Ballinger, we're outlawed from space. Thanks to Ballinger, Earth is ringed by monitoring satellites which would detect by infrared sensitivity any attempt on our part to send up a spaceship. Thanks to Ballinger, any ship that does make the attempt would be destroyed by the satellites before it cleared Luna's orbit. You have Reed Ballinger to thank for all of that."

Strayer settled back in his chair. His face was pale, his expression bleak. Then, quite suddenly, he smiled. Once again, the change was disconcerting. "But that's history, boys, and you didn't come here to ask about it. What are your plans?" He turned to Turk first.

"I guess I'd like to work around the intercontinental ramjets," Turk said. "It's the nearest thing to spaceships we have left."

"You and just about every ex-spaceman and ex-Cadet," Captain Strayer said.

Respectful but still truculent, Turk said, "Begging your pardon, sir, but if the Placement Center can't get us the jobs we want, what's it for?"

Strayer didn't answer immediately. He stood and gazed out the window over the low rooftops of White

Sands' buildings to where the tarmac of the spaceport could be seen. The sun was setting, the big skeletal gantries silhouetted against its ball of flame.

"Reorientation, first of all," Strayer said, his back turned. "And orientation to a world without space travel. You'll be interviewed again outside. We have your aptitude records here, naturally. We'll find work for you somewhere, Cadet Ayoub. But I can't guarantee the ramjets. Earth is a crowded planet, and over the centuries we've squandered our mineral wealth. May I suggest something?"

"Yes, sir," Turk said.

"I'd like to suggest schooling. Any boy qualified as a Cadet, as you were, would qualify for just about any university on Earth, and the appropriations that used to go for the Academy would pay your tuition."

"I don't know whether I want to go back to school."

"Well, there's no hurry. We want you to make up your own mind. Why don't you take some time to think it over? While you do, you'll have passes good for ramjet travel anywhere on Earth for six months— a chance to familiarize yourself with your native world again. You can pick them up on the way out." Strayer added, more slowly, "I hope you make the right decision, Cadet. With training, there are plenty of good jobs open to you on Earth, in engineering, in the pure sciences, in océanographie farming. . . ."

He turned to Andy. "What about you, Cadet Mar-low? Made up your mind yet?"

"I think my brother would like me to go back to school. I'd want to see him first and talk it over with him."

Strayer was looking out the window again. The silence grew. Andy finally had to say, "That's why the machine sent us in here, wasn't it? Because you knew where I could find Frank?"

"When did you hear from him last?" Lambert Strayer asked.

"A few months ago. Frank isn't much of a letter writer."

Strayer turned back from the window. "Your brother was a top spaceman," he said. "He qualified as a ramjet pilot on his return to Earth. He flew the New York-Scandinavian run." Strayer breathed in deeply. "Brace yourself, lad. Two weeks ago there was an accident. His ramjet crashed. Your brother Frank is dead."

Ct        Secret Spacemen

THE SUN had gone down by the time they reached the street again.

Andy had only been vaguely aware of the words of sympathy from Captain Strayer, of the pressure of Turks hand squeezing his arm, of the papers Turk had picked up for both of them in the reception-mech's room. He couldn't think. He wasn't even aware of going down the escalator with Turk or, when they reached the street, of the cool night wind blowing in off the desert. He was walking, placing one foot down in front of the other mechanically, with the same mechanical inevitability of the reception-mech's questions or, scores of light years away, of the Star Brain's decisions.

Frank was dead.

His brother was dead.

He didn't even feel grief yet, just numb disbelief. Like Turk, Andy was an orphan. They had had that in common from their first days at the Academy—

25

both their fathers had died heroically in space, seeking Earth's destiny among the distant stars.

And now Frank, too. But Frank hadn't been killed in space. He had died earthbound, on a ramjet shuttling passengers in two hours from New York across the Atlantic to Scandinavia.

If Reed Ballinger hadn't acted rashly in the name of Earth, Frank would still be alive.

More than that, if the Star Brain hadn't passed the Edict that ruled Earth out of space, Frank would still be alive. If Andy felt anything besides the terrible emptiness, it was savage resentment.

Each in his own way, Reed Ballinger and the Star Brain were responsible for what had happened to his brother. . . .

"Boys!"

It was dark on the street. A man hurried by, glaring at their uniforms contemptuously. He hadn't spoken. They reached the corner of the block where the Placement Center was located. Then who was it who had spoken?

A figure detached itself from the shadowy facade of a building near the corner. He was a small, slim man wearing a one-piece jumper of either black or very dark blue. Andy couldn't make out his features in the darkness.

"Got any plans, boys?" he asked. Neither Andy nor Turk answered. "Just came from the Placement Center, didn't you?" The man laughed derisively. "They can't help you there, can they? Didn't even offer you a job, did they?"

"No," Turk admitted. "J°Dsare hard to find for ex-Cadets."

"That's true enough," the man said, all at once sympathetic. "I asked you, what are your plans?"

Turk said, "Well, we don't have any just yet."

"I'll bet they wanted you to go back to school. It's a convenient way for getting you out of the way a few years. They got you into this, and now all they want to do is wash their hands of you."

"Who are you to talk like that?" Andy said. "It wasn't Captain Strayer's fault." He was surprised to find himself defending the ex-spaceman. He didn't like the stranger's wheedling voice.

"My name's Gault. I'm an ex-spacer just like Strayer." Though no one was about, Gault came closer and whispered conspiratorily, "And I can tell you this ... I know of ten Cadets who walked out of that Placement Center tonight and got jobs. Good ones, too."

"You do?" Turk said. He was interested. "That's right." "What kind of jobs?" "What kind did you want?"

"Ramjets, I guess," Turk said. "But there isn't a chance. That's what everyone wants."

That's what Frank had wanted, Andy thought. Gault said, "Better than ramjets, boy."

"Are you kidding?" Turk exclaimed. "There isn't an ex-spaceman who wouldn't give his bottom credit to pilot a ramjet. It's the nearest thing to spaceflight there is."

"Better than ramjets," Gault repeated. "That's all I can say, now," he added mysteriously.

"Come on, Turk," Andy told his friend. "Let's get out of here."

"Hold it a minute, boys," Gault persisted. "Maybe I've got your future, the whole rest of your lives, right here in the palm of my hand. You just want to let it go?"

"What do we have to do?" Turk asked.

"Come with me is all. I already hired ten ex-Cadets tonight. They're waiting. You two will make twelve."

"Hired them to do what?" Andy demanded.

"You'll see when we get . . . where we're going."

"If you're an ex-spaceman," Andy challenged him, "let's see your credentials."

"All right, all right, so I didn't come down after the Edict. They pulled my license on me."

"What for?"

"Smuggling," Gault said promptly. He laughed. "At least, that was what they called it. Just like they called Captain Reed Ballinger a mad dog when they could have closed ranks behind him as the greatest hero Earth's ever known." He shrugged then. "Well, if you want to be stupid enough not to come along, good riddance."

"Wait a minute, Mr. Gault," Turk said. He took Andy aside. "What have we got to lose?" "He hasn't even told us what kind of job."

"He said he can't." "Doesn't that bother you?"

"I still don't think we have anything to lose," Turk said.

Gault called to them, "Make up your minds, I don't have all night."

Turk looked at Andy. "I . . . I'm sorry, Andy. I'm going with him. I've got to. What if he's right about getting us out of the way at school? What if. . . ."

Andy didn't hear the rest of it. Suddenly the most important thing in the world was to keep Turk's friendship. He had nothing else left, not now, and Turk was the best friend he'd ever had.

". . . going to take the chance," Turk finished.

Andy listened to the wind moaning in off the desert. "I'm going with you," he said.

A copter-cab took the three of them to White Sands airport, which lay south of the city about five miles from the all but abandoned spaceport. A twin-engined ramjet was waiting on the tarmac. As they approached, Andy saw a group of ex-Cadets filing out of the administration building in the glare of the tarmac floodlights.

Andy was drawn into a reunion with his Luna Academy classmates. He heard their shouts:

"Turk, you old Sirian!"

"Thought I'd see your ugly face here."

"Hey look, there's Andy, too."

"Wouldn't have been complete without them. Now we're ready to go."

Andy began to feel better. Turk was his friend, and these were his friends, too. What did it matter where they were going, as long as they were together?

Gault took the controls of the ramjet, and five minutes later they were roaring down the runway. Charlie Sands, one of Andy's classmates, shouted over the thunder of the ramjets, "The only thing Mr. Gault would tell us is that we're heading south."

"That's more than he told us," Turk complained.

"To Mexico," Charlie said, and then they all settled back and unfastened their safety belts as the ramjet reached cruising altitude at fifty thousand feet. At that height, the flame of the sunset was still visible in the west, but all the world below them was shrouded in darkness.

It was dark again when they landed two hours later. At the ramjet's cruising speed, Andy realized, they had come a long way. If their destination really was Mexico, they must have flown south clear across the Mexican peninsula to the Yucatan jungle.

Charlie Sands unbolted the lugs of the ramjet's door.

Here in Mexico, the night was windless. Beyond the asphalt of the runway, a fat moon hung low over tropical trees. Andy could smell the strange, alien perfume of the tropical air.

"Welcome aboard, boys," Gault said.

Aboard? But they were just leaving the ramjet, weren't they?

Andy and Turk were the first down the flight stairs after Gault himself.

That was when Andy saw rocket gantries silhouetted against the moonlit sky. There were dozens of them.

"Spaceships!" Turk cried.

Gault chided him, "Still want to pilot ramjets?"

It was true. Nose pointing skyward, hull hard against the superstructure of every gantry, was a spaceship.

On an Earth where spaceflight had been outlawed.

CkUptet  4 Captain Batlinger

EVEN before the blazing tropical dawn burst over the Yucatan jungle, Andy was waiting at the dormitory window.

He had to see the gantries and spaceships again for himself. He'd had a brief view of them on landing, and then all of Gault's recruits had been herded from the ramjet quickly across the chuckholed asphalt of what could only be an abandoned spaceport by two silent men who would answer none of the eager questions of the ex-Cadets.

They had been ushered to a dormitory and assigned beds. Fifteen minutes later the lights went out, and a few moments after that there had been a creaking, groaning sound outside. It was tantalizingly familiar, but Andy hadn't been able to identify it. For a while the Cadets had talked excitedly—those were spaceships they had seen, it was as if their wildest dreams suddenly had come true, space wasn't closed to them, somehow, someway, they'd be going to space again. They couldn't believe it; it was too good to be true.

32

Turk's last sleepy words to Andy were, "Now I'll bet you're glad you came along."

When Andy awoke, he saw the mound of Turk's sleeping form under the coversheet in the adjacent bed. All the others were still asleep, too. He padded barefoot to the window, where the gray predawn light seeped in. In his mind's eye he pictured the gaunt shapes of the gantries, the sleek proud hulls of the secret spaceships.

He peered out the window expectantly.

And saw only the empty gray flatness of the abandoned spaceport, stretching drably to the rim of jungle.

The gantries, the spaceships, were gone.

"Turk!" he called, and Turk and the others joined him at the window one by one, rubbing sleep from their eyes, stretching, then blinking and gaping.

"Where'd they go?" someone cried.

"What is this?" Charlie Sands wanted to know.

"Deserted. . . ."

"Impossible, last night they. . . ."

"Where's Mr. Gault? Mr. Gault can explain it." That was Turk.

Andy, who had had more time to adjust to the unexpected disappearance of the spaceships, was scowling. In the dim light he could barely make out dozens of large, dark circles on the pitted asphalt. Wordless, he touched Turk's shoulder and pointed to one of them.

"Hey, wait a minute," Turk said. "Are they underground?"

Andy nodded; then everyone was talking at once again. Andy hardly heard their words. Suppose, he thought, your job was to recruit spacemen on a world where spaceflight was illegal. Suppose your job was to recruit them among ex-spacemen and Cadets. Suppose you couldn't tell them, because a few might balk and go to the authorities.

And finally, suppose you'd want to reveal the purpose of their ramjet flight to Mexico in the most dramatic way.

What way would be more effective than to have them see, silhouetted on their arrival against the tropic moon, the spaceships themselves?

That had been Gault's job. He had planned it that way.

But of course the illegal spaceships couldn't remain above the ground. A chance flyer might spot them from the air. So, Andy decided, once their dramatic purpose had been achieved, the gantries and spaceships had been lowered underground in their launching pits. That would explain the creaking and groaning they had all heard last night.

Conclusion: someone was assembling a fleet of illegal spaceships. Gault? Somehow Andy didn't think so. The little smuggler might make a good recruiting agent, but Andy just didn't see him as the brains behind what was obviously a tremendous undertaking.

Andy's thoughts were whirling. You hijack the powerplant of an abandoned spaceship one place, the hull another, the fittings a third. Then take them secretly by surface truck, monorail, and ramjet transport to Mexico, assemble them again. . . .

An amplified voice in the dormitory boomed: "Attention, new recruits! All new recruits to the administration building. Follow the green arrows to the administration building."

"That means us," Turk said.

Andy's stomach was grumbling protestingly by the time his interview ended. The last meal he'd eaten was aboard "Tycho III" before landing in White Sands.

It was an exhaustive interview conducted by an ex-spaceman named Odet, and it reminded Andy of his first day at Luna Academy. Taking notes throughout, Odet asked him the same sort of thorough questions he'd been asked at his arrival on the moon a year ago. Further, Odet was intensely curious about Andy's training at Luna Academy.

"First-year man?" he asked.

"Yes, that's right."

"Had you started to specialize?"

Andy nodded.

"Pilot?"

"No," Andy said, "I was enrolled in the astrogation school at Luna." Odet smiled. "Fledgling astrogator, eh? That's splendid. We have a shortage of astrogators. We can really use you."

"Can I ask what this is all about? I mean, what can you use me for?"

"You saw the spaceships, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"We can use you to astrogate . . . aboard a spaceship."

"But. . . ."

"It will all be explained."

And a fresh flow of questions started.

Andy didn't find out what it was all about that day, or the next, or the day after that.

Instead, it was almost as if he had returned to Luna Academy. In fact, he never had worked so hard at the task he loved. He spent hours at underground control-cabin mockups; saw motion pictures of space through make-believe viewports; had to plot interstellar orbits and then replot them and then change them again.

He was in astrogation school again.

To make the unexpected similarity complete, his teachers, like the teachers at Luna Academy, were ex-spacemen.

But why were they here?

How had they obtained the illegal spaceships?

What could they do with them? Weren't monitoring satellites circling Earth, ready to destroy any ships that blasted off?

Question after question buzzed through Andy's head. In the breaks between classes he asked his instructors. They changed the subject. They wouldn't talk to him about it.

On his third day in Mexico, Andy was given the task of plotting an orbit out of subspace. He wished he had access to star charts, for the patterns of stars that emerged out of the smoky haze of simulated sub-space looked tantalizingly familiar.

Wasn't that extremely bright Class Fo star on the right edge of the viewport Canopus?

The home of the Star Brain?

The unknown star's spectrum was Fo, of that Andy was almost sure. And, even accounting for simulated proximity, it was extremely bright. Of the brightest stars in the sky, Andy remembered from his lessons at Luna Academy, Canopus stood second only to Sirius. And that was because Sirius' distance from Sol System was a mere 8.7 light years, whereas eighty times that distance separated Canopus from Sol System.

Sirius' apparent visual magnitude was —1.58.

Canopus' apparent visual magnitide was —0.86.

But Sirius' absolute visual magnitude was only 1.3 on a scale that placed the sun itself at 4.8.

And Canopus' absolute visual magnitude, on the same scale, was an astonishing —7.5.

The intelligent races of the Galaxy had selected a truly spectacular star system as the home of the Star Brain.

Was Andy plotting a simulated orbit toward it now?

He thought so but wasn't positive—another question with no immediate answer.

Could Andy conclude that, if the illegal spaceships blasted off and somehow managed to elude the monitoring satellites, their destination would be Canopus?

His instructor looked up from Andy's computations. "Your orbit checks out, Cadet," he said. He even called Andy that.

"Checks out ... to Canopus?" Andy asked.

The ex-spaceman looked startled. Then he smiled grudgingly. "No comment, Cadet. You'll find out soon enough."

That night, Andy returned to the dormitory before Turk. He was polishing his boots when his friend appeared. Turk was excited.

"You'll never guess what they have me working on."

"Piloting?"

Turk said nothing, and Andy added; "On a simulated flight to Canopus?"

Turk shook his head. "Gunnery," he said. "Gunnery?"

"They have more junior pilots than they need."

"What do you mean by gunnery?"

"Just what I said. I'm learning how to use a gun, a space cannon, I guess you'd call it." Turk smiled. "Or maybe a pint-sized rocket-within-a-rocket. All I have to do is some fast mathematical figuring, almost like an astrogator. Then I press a button, and out streaks a rocket, or anyway a simulated rocket, toward its target." "What target?"

"Nobody told me," Turk said. "But I can take a good guess. It looks like a small sphere, and it's circling an Earth-sized and cloud-covered planet in an orbit about ten thousand miles out."

"A monitoring satellite!" Andy cried.

"That's the way I see it."

Neither of them voiced what came into his mind: Were they going to blast their way into space?

After lights-out, it took Andy a long time to fall asleep. If they fired rockets at the monitors, he knew, it would mean war, the first interstellar war in history. Because, expectedly, the Star Brain's response would be: punish Earth. And for what? Whoever commanded the fleet of illegal space ships would risk interstellar war, risk a ravaged Earth with bombed-out cities.

In his history classes at the Academy Andy had learned that war was now impossible. Mankind and the other races of the Galaxy had mastered weapons of such power that war would be unthinkable. First had come atomic warheads and then hydrogen warheads and finally cobalt warheads, each potentially more devastating than the one before.

The only protection against them was a quick and equally brutal counterattack. As Andy's instructor at the Academy had put it, "Offensive weapons are several generations ahead of defensive countermeasures. That's been true ever since the middle of the twentieth century. War is unthinkable—if no one can win it. . . ."

Andy drifted off to troubled sleep.

And awoke to bright lights and shouting.

"He's here!"

"Outside. . . ."

"Waiting to make a speech. . , ." "Everybody out!"

Turk jumped into his boots and zipped them. "What's going on?" Andy asked. "Who's here?"

Turk tousled his hair. "Boy, you sleep like a log. Didn't you hear? Lieutenant Odet came through with the news."

"What news?" Andy asked in mounting exasperation.

"Ballinger," Turk said. "Captain Reed Ballinger flew into Mexico today. He's running the show here. Come on."

Andy zipped his own boots and, with Turk, joined the crowd in the quadrangle outside their dormitory. Ex-spacemen and Cadets alike, old hands and newcomers, were trotting toward the administration building. Floodlights lit the steps in front. The night was hot, the moon high. The jungle seemed very close.

A tall figure resplendent in the dress uniform of a Senior Captain of the Space Corps stepped into the glare of the floodlights.

This, Andy knew, was Captain Reed Baliinger.

Shouldering his way through the crowd with Turk, he felt his breath catch. Depending on your point of view, Baliinger was a hero ... or a villain. Even if his motives had been selfish—and according to Lambert Strayer they were—he had defended Earth's rights in defiance of the Star Brain and the entire Galactic Confederacy which, to a world, followed the Star Brain's dicta like shorn lambs. But his defense of Earth's rights had cost Earth possibly its greatest right of all: access to the far star trails of the Galaxy.

Reed Baliinger, standing dramatically in the floodlights' glare while the crowd settled down, had a ruggedly handsome face. It was all crags, straight lines, and shadows—the heavy brow, the straight nose, the firm hard line of the lips, the thrusting jaw. Baliinger stood there waiting. He had a sense of timing that was almost theatrical, Andy realized. The crowd grew silent, and he let the silence grow. He stood ramrod straight without moving.

And then, finally, he took a step forward and spoke.

His voice was deep, his words slow, loud, and clear.

"Some of you know me. Others don't. All of you know of me. But I'm here to tell you that I, as an individual, am unimportant."

There were muttered denials in the crowd.

"If I'm unimportant as an individual, it is because, pitted against a hostile Galactic Confederacy, all individuals are unimportant.

"But with your help, with the help of other brave men like you, waiting even now at a dozen other secret spacefields from here to Indochina, we can make Earth's power felt across the length and breadth of the Galaxy."

Someone behind Andy shouted. Applause swept like a wave through the darkness. Ballinger, timing it perfectly again, went on:

"We're Earthmen. I don't know what that means . . . yet ... to Sirians or Procyonians or the fish life of Fomalhaut or Capellans . . . but they'll know before we're finished. We're Earthmen.

"We won't have exile crammed down our throats.

"If it's necessary to blast a path back into space, then we're prepared to do that. We're Earth-men. . . ."

This time it was several minutes before the roaring crowd would let Ballinger continue. He smiled patiently, waiting. His attitude was clear: he, Reed Ballinger, was their servant; he would continue when they were ready.

"Do we have rocket weapons?" he cried.

"Ye-e$!" The answer was like thunder.

"Are we afraid of a fight? Will we let a handful of monitoring satellites keep us earthbound when the whole Galaxy is waiting for the proud shape of our ships and the dauntless tread of our boots on far worlds?"

"Noo-oo!"

"If we have to blast the monitors out of the sky, are we prepared to do it? If we have to bomb the Star Brain again ..." here Ballinger smiled in self-mockery . . this time more effectively than my first hasty effort, are we prepared for that too?

"Men, our heritage is out there, in deep space. We're spacemen. Tied to a planet, even Mother Earth, we're nothing. In space we come alive. Will we let a machine keep us dead?

"I'm here to tell you we can do it. I'm here to tell you we have to do it. Men, except for the monitors, there isn't an armed ship between Earth and Canopus —and I hear tell that the Canopus fleet, the Guardians of the Brain, is just a wee bit creaky with age." Bal-linger's voice was soft now with mild, chiding contempt. Nervous laughter greeted his words, and he went on:

"We've scoured Earth for our own weapon systems. We've found them in the garbage heaps of a civilization gone soft ... in museums, rusting in public parks, once or twice at the bottom of the sea. We've all spent a busy year. The fruits of our labor are now hanging ripe before our eyes.

"Men, we are ready.

"The challenge awaits us.

"Is there anyone among you without the courage to accept it?"

There was, apparently, no one.

"We blast off in two weeks' time," Reed Ballinger said, calm now. "Hundreds of ships from twelve bases scattered across the globe. They won't expect so many ships, and some of us are bound to reach Canopus." Reed Ballinger bowed his head.

"When that happens, when we destroy the Star Brain, space is ours. . . ."

Ballinger capped his dramatic speech with a dramatic curtain. The floodlights just blinked out. The night swallowed Ballinger, and the stars of space were very bright, as if trying to outshine the full moon.

In the darkness, Andy was aware of shouts and backslapping and roars of approval.

If they all agreed with Ballinger, Andy thought in despair, the Galaxy might be plunged into its first interstellar war.

Chapter 5 Escape!

THE NEXT afternoon, a score of Indians arrived at the illegal spaceport with a burro train of supplies for the ex-Cadets.

They were small brown men, heirs of the ancient Mayas who once had ruled the Yucatec jungle, and they still clung to their age-old ways. They were barefoot and wore loose white garments. They spent two hours at the spaceport, unloading their burros and driving hard bargains for the salted meat, starchy root vegetables, and melons they had brought from the nearby town.

Their arrival was a welcome diversion. All day Andy had been thinking of Captain Ballinger's speech and the obvious enthusiasm with which the ex-Cadets had greeted it. Now Ballinger was gone, but his name was on everyone's lips. No one doubted for a minute that Reed Ballinger would lead them back into space.

Andy's only solace was the memory of the brief meeting with Lambert Strayer in New Mexico. Strayer

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had been a Space Captain, too, one of the greatest. And Strayer had nothing but contempt for Reed Ballinger.

But maybe Strayer, Andy thought in despair, was just a lonely voice out of the past, an anachronism like the Indians. Maybe Reed Ballinger really stood for the wave of the future.

Andy stood for a long time at the edge of the spaceport tarmac, watching the Indians lead their unloaded burros off into the jungle. An armed sentry paraded by and gave him a flinty-eyed look. A voice said, "You better get back to work."

It was Turk. Andy realized that except for the sentry they were all alone on the edge of the tarmac, close to the encroaching jungle. When Andy didn't answer, Turk said, "What's eating you? You've been acting queer ever since Captain Ballinger was here."

"I was thinking of Lambert Strayer."

"What about him? He's ancient history," Turk said. "Captain Ballinger. . . ."

All of Andy's uncertainty and confusion were blurted out in a few words. "Captain Ballinger? Your Captain Ballinger isn't fit to wipe Lambert Strayer's boots. You heard what Strayer told us: Ballinger was responsible for Earth being ruled out of space."

Turk glanced around, alarmed, but the sentry was a long way off. "Hey," he advised, "keep it down to a dull roar, will you? Don't talk about Reed Ballinger like that . . . not around here."

"I'm just talking to you. No one else."

"Then don't. Because I don't want to hear it." "Afraid to?" Andy asked curtly. "Now, look . . ." Turk began.

"You look," Andy cut him off. "Maybe you can forget all the history they taught us on Luna. I can't. There's never been an interstellar war. They said it was unthinkable. They said mankind and the other intelligent races of the Galaxy had developed weapons that could destroy civilization. They said. . . ."

"Professors," Turk scoffed. "I'll tell you something they didn't know about. I'll bet they never saw a couple of dozen Indians leading a train of burros through the jungle."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"Now who's forgetting history? A couple of thousand years ago the ancestors of those Indians had a great civilization going. They . . . well, they got soft. Look at them now."

"They couldn't meet the challenge of the jungle," Andy protested. "Okay, I'll admit that. So they reverted to savagery. What are you driving at?"

"What do you think will happen to mankind, if we can't meet the challenge of space?"

"It was Ballinger who couldn't meet it, Ballinger who had to take the law into his own hands."

"Andy, Andy. Do you want to stay earthbound all your life?"

"No, I. . . ." But Andy's voice trailed off. If he admitted that space was a fire in his blood, wasn't Bal-linger's the only way back to the star trails?

"It's like we're at a crossroads of history," Turk said, speaking slowly, struggling with the unfamiliar concepts. "We go one way, and we're like those Indians. We go another, and we seek our destiny in space. We need a man like Reed Ballinger to lead us."

"Just like he led us the last time?"

Turk looked away. "There's no use talking to you," he said. "You're in a rut. You're living in the past. You don't care if you never set foot inside a spaceship again. And you're just going to get into trouble thinking like that."

"When I came down here, nobody told me there'd be thought control."

"I give up," Turk said. He started to walk away, and flung over his shoulder, "Nobody made you come here. Just remember that. Like the rest of us, you flew down of your own free will."

"I'll remember it, all right," Andy promised, but by then Turk was out of earshot.

The rain drummed on the tarmac and roared through the heavy foliage of the surrounding jungle. Andy was drenched to the skin seconds after going outside. He could see the lights in the windows of the other dormitories, and brighter light in the administration building. All else was blackness. The rain poured down in endless sheets. There was no wind. Andy wondered about the Indian village. It had to be nearby; he hoped he could find it in the darkness and the rain. If he got lost in the jungle, he'd be in serious trouble. He had decided to escape.

At first the use of the word escape in his thoughts surprised him. Escape? From what?

But, he told himself now at midnight as he trotted swiftly across the tarmac, often splashing ankle-deep in water, it would be escape. Armed guards patrolled the periphery of the spaceport day and night. Whether they changed their minds or not, Reed Bal-linger's "volunteers" were supposed to stay put.

Oddly enough, what had made up Andy's mind had nothing to do with Ballinger or the secret spaceport or the Indians or his argument with Turk. He remembered a day almost two years ago when he was ready to apply for admission to Luna Academy. He'd filled out all the forms, but he didn't mail them.

His brother Frank was home then, between flights, and they were living in a hotel near Kansas City Spaceport.

Frank had said, "Got your application all ready?" "Yes."

"I saw it in your desk. What's the matter, Andy?" "It's nothing."

"Come on, now. This is your brother Frank you're talking to." "I guess I'm not sure, that's all." "About being a spaceman? What else do you want

to be?"

"You'll laugh if I tell you."

"Try me," Frank suggested.

And Andy, averting his eyes, had said uncomfortably, "Well, I was thinking of maybe being an archaeologist."

"A digger, huh?"

Andy's face reddened as he defended the idea. "Did you ever stop to think of all the mysteries of mankind's past that haven't been solved? Angkor, the origin of the Cretans, the way we keep on finding that so many of the ancient myths really happened, it's . . . fascinating," Andy finished lamely.

His brother Frank had surprised him. "Sure it is. And I can see how it would interest a bright kid like you."

"You mean you're not mad at me?"

"What for? You want to be an archaeologist; go ahead and be one. I have a hunch you'll make me proud of you."

"But I thought . . . you being a spaceman and all. . . ."

"What does that have to do with it? I'm me, I'm Frank Marlow, and I guess space is in my blood. I'm not happy unless I eat it and breathe it and sleep it. But you're Andy Marlow, and whatever else you do, you've got to live with yourself."

An enormous smile of relief covered Andy's face. "Gosh, I thought. . . ."

"That I'd be ripping mad? Not on your life, Andy. Make up your own mind. I won't push you one way or the other." Frank said thoughtfully, "Look, there are maybe three ways a man can see himself and his position in the world." He ticked the three ways off on his fingers. "One, you think what other people will say about any decision you make is important. It's a pretty comfortable way to live, because you're always in step. But if it's so important to be in step like that, you lose something of what makes you tick as Andy Mar low.

"Two, you pick out one person—like a father, maybe, or in your case an older brother—and say whatever he does or whatever he expects me to do is what I'm going to do. That's a pretty comfortable way to live, too. You're following the footsteps of someone you respect and admire; so your orbit's all charted for you. But again, you're a little less Andy Marlow.

"Three—and this is the one I'm plugging for, Andy —you get this sort of image in your head of what you think Andy Marlow ought to be like, what he ought to do, and you stick to it. That isn't necessarily a comfortable way to live. Lots of times you'll disagree with people you love and want to agree with; lots of times you'll feel out of step because the decisions you reach won't always gain the approval of all the other people you come into contact with. But this way you're your own man, Andy, and anything you decide to do with your own life, well, it comes from the inside out. It's Andy Marlow acting on the world, and not the other way around. In the long run, if you have what it takes, you'll be happiest that way."

Frank picked the Academy application up and studied it for a long moment. "Would you feel better if I threw this thing away? Maybe one spaceman in the family is enough."

"No," Andy said. "But thanks for the speech, Frank. I won't forget it. I just haven t made up my mind yet."

He hadn't forgotten the advice, but in the end he had decided on Luna Academy. Archaeology would always be his second love, but the call of space was too strong to resist. It was only after he had made the decision, completely on his own, that Frank had pointed out:

"Could be you'll be able to mix them, Andy."

"Mix what?"

"Space and archaeology. I didn't want to tell you till you made up your mind. But didn't it occur to you that every civilized world in the Galaxy has its archaeological past, just as Earth does?"

"I guess so, but you never hear of diggers visiting each other's worlds to study alien ancient history."

"That's true, you don't," Frank said soberly. "Maybe it's one trouble with the Galaxy. Maybe it's why we need a Star Brain to tell us what to do, because we don't take the trouble to understand each other."

"I think we ought to."

Frank smiled. "Keep thinking like that, and I have a hunch one of these years I'll sit back and watch my famous brother."

Now in the rain at the spaceport in Mexico Andy remembered Frank's words. You get this sort of image in your head of what you think Andy Marlow ought to be like, what he ought to do, and you stick to it.

Frank was dead, had died earthbound though his own idea of Frank Marlow had been of Frank Mar-low, spaceman. And all at once nothing was as important to Andy as Frank's advice. Whatever else you did, you had to be true to yourself—it boiled down to that.

If space was important enough to him, and it was, Andy could see himself disobeying the Edict and returning to the star trails.

But he couldn't see himself following Reed Ballinger with his rocket guns and cobalt bombs to interstellar war.

Soaked and breathless, he reached the edge of the tarmac. In the light shed by the windows of the nearby administration building he could see a sentry patrolling, head low, body huddled under a poncho, the sheets of tropical rain bouncing off his slumped shoulders.

Andy waited until the sentry was out of sight. As nearly as he could remember, it was at about this point that the Indians and their burros had entered the jungle. Andy stumbled into the first thick undergrowth and searched for the trail that would lead to their village. He didn't know exactly what he would do when he got there. He only knew he wanted to leave Reed Ballinger's spaceport, return to civilization and then. . . .

And then what?

He couldn't report to the authorities on Ballinger's plans. Turk and too many of his old friends from Luna Academy had joined up with Ballinger, and if Andy betrayed the ex-Space Captain, even if Ballinger deserved it, he'd be betraying his friends as well. Yet if he didn't, if he allowed Ballinger to go ahead with his plans, the result might well be the first . . . and the last . . . interstellar war in history.

Betrayal of his friends through action or betrayal of mankind through lack of action, it came down to that.

Andy found the jungle trail and sloshed along it. The water swirled at his feet. In places it was knee-deep. Despite that, Andy set a grueling pace for himself. He had no idea how far the village was, and there were now less than six hours till sunrise when he would be missed.

He counted cadence—walk quickstep two hundred paces, then double time two hundred paces, then quickstep again. Splashing, floundering, he made his way along the narrow jungle trail.

After half an hour he allowed himself the luxury of a five-minute break. He sat, drenched and panting, on a stump, listening to the sound of his own breathing and the steady roar of the storm.

Then he heard another sound. It was unmistakable, footsteps slogging along the trail behind him.

He was being followed.

The Trail of a Spaceman

ANDY stood in a crouch at the edge of the trail.

He could see nothing. The darkness was complete. He felt steamy with sweat under his sodden jumper. His own breath was loud in his ears, and he wondered whether his pursuer would hear it. For the first time he felt fear . . . what if it were an armed sentry splashing toward him through the night? He knew he had no choice. He had to wait for whoever it was and subdue him. If he didn't, if he were pursued all the way to the Indian village, and if the man who had followed him were armed. . . .

A wet branch slapped against his face. His pursuer had reached him.

Andy sprang at him, hitting him waist-high with a shoulder and bringing him down in the muddy water.

They floundered there, rolling over and over in the mud.

The man was very strong and seemed as determined as Andy was. Once Andy went over on his back, to feel himself pinned in the mud. His head was

55

under water; he swallowed a mouthful and gagged and lashed out with arms and legs to scramble atop his still unseen antagonist. There was a gurgling sound as he forced the man's head under water as he straddled him. Andy let go. Whoever it was, he didn't want to drown him.

A familiar voice cried out, "Leggo, darn you!"

It was Turk.

Andy released his grip and rose shakily to his feet. His knees trembled with reaction.

Turk said, "You want to kill a guy?"

Relief flooded through Andy. It was Turk, he told himself, and Turk had followed him. Turk had decided to join him; they were still friends; together they could work out what they had to do. . . .

"You're coming back with me," Turk said.

The disappointment of those few words was like a blow. Andy didn't answer.

"We can get back in the dorm safe and sound before dawn, and nobody but me will know what a darned fool you almost were," Turk said.

"I'm not going back, Turk."

"Are you crazy? You've got to go back. Do you think I can let you go? One word out of you and the police will have us all flushed out of Captain Ballinger's spaceport inside of twenty-four hours."

"Maybe that would be the best thing that could happen to you."

There was a silence. Turk sighed finally. "We used to be friends, Andy."

"I know."

"There's a whole bunch of your friends back there, guys you lived with on Luna. Do you want to betray all of them?"

"I don't know," Andy admitted.

"Don't you realize Reed Ballinger's doing what he's doing for the good of mankind?"

"That's not the way I see it."

"Do you see any other way?"

"No," Andy said.

"Maybe you'd like to see over five billion Earth-men make like Yucatec Indians?"

"I wouldn't like to see one Earthman start a war no one will finish."

"Listen," Turk said, "if you're dumb enough to kick over your one chance to get back into space, go ahead. I won't stop you. But a lot of guys who were your friends are in this up to their ears, and a lot of guys your brother would have been proud to call his friends, too. You go to the police, and we all face prison. Go on, get out if you're dumb enough to. But don't turn us in, Andy. You can't."

"I never said I would," Andy heard himself saying, because the plea in his old friend's words was more than he could bear. "I just want out; that's all."

"You mean you won't turn us in?"

Andy took a deep breath. "No, Turk. I couldn't do that."

Turk brightened. "Then come on back with me before it's too late."

"I couldn't do that either." "You're making a mistake," Turk said. "Maybe I am. But I'm the one who has to live with myself."

The two friends were silent for a while. Andy's throat felt sore. He hadn't realized it, but they had both been shouting to make themselves heard over the roar of the downpour.

Suddenly Andy felt Turk's wet hand groping for his. They stood there, in the dark, utterly drenched, unable to see each other, and shook hands.

"I hope someday. . . ." Turk began, and his voice trailed off.

"We're still friends if you want to be, Turk," Andy's voice was choked. Turk was his best friend, and probably his last remaining friend since he'd fled from Reed Ballinger's spaceport. He wondered whether he would ever see Turk again. And then he realized, even though he didn't know where he would go or what he would do, that if they did meet again circumstances might make them enemies. Whatever happened, Andy wanted no part of Reed Ballinger's schemes.

"I want to be," Turk said and pumped Andy's hand vigorously again. Then he was gone. Andy listened for the sound of his retreating footsteps but heard only the storm.

Head down, dispirited, Andy continued along the jungle trail.

Andy reached the Indian village at dawn. The storm had stopped, and the sun burst over the horizon to reveal a clearing several hundred yards in diameter. Crude huts dotted it, and stolid Indians in their doorways looked at Andy without interest.

He felt cut off, not merely from civilization but from any sort of life he had ever known. It was like the landing at White Sands all over again, but at least then Andy had known that the Placement Center was doing what it could for the ex-Cadets. Now Andy was completely on his own. His brother Frank was dead; he had deserted his best friend because he'd had to. There was no one who would care whether he remained in the Yucatec jungle all his life or returned to civilization, no one whose life would be touched one iota whether he lived or died.

"Hello," an Indian called and marched from his hut to greet Andy. He had a broad square face and alert, friendly dark eyes. "You are from the spaceport?"

The unexpected sound of his own language encouraged Andy. "That's right. I ... I'd like to get back to North America."

"It is a long way," the Indian said gravely. Proudly he added, "I speak good English, yes? I learn it in mission school. There is a bus that goes to Merida, and from Merida the airplane."

"I have no money for the bus," Andy said.

The Indian flashed white teeth. "Still, you are lucky. I, Tuhalpa, am driver of the bus. For chance to speak the language English, I will take you."

Tuhalpa told him the bus didn't leave until late afternoon. Andy's spirits plummeted. That meant Bal-lingers guards would come searching for him while he was still in the village.

He said, "I've had some trouble at the spaceport. You'd only get in trouble yourself if you . .

Tuhalpa raised a hand and told him, "Please, you are not only one. In past, three young spacemen come here to village of Tuhalpa. It is safe, young friend."

"You mean I'm not the first who . . . ran away?"

"Three others," Tuhalpa repeated, and the knowledge heartened Andy as nothing had since his return to Earth from the Academy on Luna. It meant he wasn't the only one who didn't believe Reed Bal-linger's way was right. But if three others had escaped, he suddenly thought, why hadn't the police landed their jet-copters at the spaceport and put a stop to Ballinger's illegal activities?

"Come inside, please," Tuhalpa urged. "For speaking English."

Three armed spaceport guards reached the little village in midafternoon.

With Tuhalpa and his wife, a plump and cheerful woman who spoke no English but who all but force fed Andy on the simple Indian fare, Andy watched them through the chinks in the wall of the hut. They spoke to the headman; Andy couldn't hear what they said. He saw the old headman gesturing and shrugging-

Tuhalpa smiled and said softly, "He is telling them no visitor came to village today."

"Why?" Andy asked. "Why is he doing it?"

Tuhalpa's answer was simple and somehow encouraging. "Yucatec Indians give up warfare in time of my great-grandfather. Yucatec Indians no like men with guns."

Andy nodded slowly. He was aware of Tuhalpa's strong hand on his shoulder. "Now it is time you hide."

"Hide?"

"They have great fear of trickery. They search all houses."

There was a stuffy little storeroom in the back of the hut, and Tuhalpa's wife led Andy in there. Crates and slats and bales of the coarse white fabric from which the Indians wove their garments were piled in the little room. Tuhalpa's wife made a nest of logs and boards and fabric for Andy. He nestled down in it and heard her departing footsteps. After that he could hear the sound of his own heartbeat, then voices dimly, and then one voice close and loud.

"What's in there?"

"Storeroom," said Tuhalpa.

"Let's have a look."

"If the spaceman wishes."

Andy held his breath.

Boots clomped on the clay of the storeroom floor. "Nothing in here," a voice said.

"It's always the same," another voice complained. "They must go somewhere."

"Not to this village. Come on."

Then barely heard voices again, and then silence. After a long time, Andy felt the slats and logs and boards being lifted away. He blinked at the light.

"Young Cadet safe now," Tuhalpa smiled at him.

"I don't know how to thank you."

"There is way," Tuhalpa said gravely.

"I'll do anything I can."

"After Merida, where will young Cadet go?"

"I don't know. North America. White Sands, I guess."

Tuhalpa shook his head. "As special favor to Tuhalpa, young Cadet will go to Mexico City. Young Cadet can fly without ticket, yes?"

"Yes, but . . . who are you?"

"Am only poor bus driver to Merida. In Mexico City, young Cadet will visit friend of Tuhalpa, yes? Name of Ruy Alvarez."

"Alvarez?" Andy gasped. "Captain Alvarez?"

"Young Cadet knows Ruy Alvarez?" Tuhalpa asked with a mysterious smile.

"He was just one of the most famous Space Captains of them all," Andy said eagerly.

"Good. Bus leaves in one hour." Tuhalpa gave Andy Ruy Alvarez's address in Mexico City.

An hour later they were on the road to Merida in an ancient, clattering bus. A dozen or so Indians, some carrying caged chickens, little bundles, and small crates, shared the bus with him. Andy sat up front near Tuhalpa. The Indian parried all his questions about Ruy Alvarez.

They said good-by at the Merida airport. Tuhalpa would not accept Andy's thanks. "It is I, young Cadet, who should thank you. Have much valuable practice of the language English, yes?" He blinked and smiled in the bright sunlight on the edge of the runway and mentioned Captain Alvarez's name for the first time since leaving the village. "And Ruy Alvarez, he says to help young Cadets like you is to help all my people and even all mankind."

"But how did he. . . ."

"Good luck, Cadet."

Tuhalpa turned and strode briskly away toward his waiting bus. A few minutes later Andy boarded a turbo-jet airliner that was as old as the bus itself. The flight stairs were withdrawn. Turbo-jets whining, the plane roared down the runway and was airborne.

The patio of Captain Ruy Alvarez's big hacienda on the southern outskirts of Mexico City was lit by candlelight. Insects chirped in the darkness, and the scent of tropical flowers was strong in Andy's nostrils. Distantly he could hear the roar of jet-car traffic on the big boulevard running north to the city.

"Is there anything else you wish?" Ruy Alvarez asked.

Andy shook his head. "If I eat any more, I'll burst, Captain Alvarez."

Ruy Alvarez was a small, dark-haired man as lean as a foil. He had olive skin and a small, serious mouth. He suddenly leaned forward across the table. Until then he'd been making only small talk, and though he was a splendid host Andy felt a growing sense of impatience.

"Now that you've left Ballinger's spaceport," Captain Alvarez asked—and looking at him Andy knew the small talk was over-—"what do you intend to do?"

"I don't know," Andy said frankly.

"Ballinger's activities are illegal," Alvarez pointed out. "Why don't you make a report to the police?"

"I can't," Andy said.

"No? And why can't you?"

"I made a promise . . . to a friend."

"One of Ballinger's men?"

"Yes."

"I see. But you couldn't stop me from reporting what you have told me to the police, could you?"

"No," Andy admitted, "I couldn't."

Captain Alvarez stood up and paced back and forth on the terrazzo floor of the patio. Behind him an ornate fountain gurgled. "I'm not going to," he said at last.

Andy said nothing.

"We've known what Ballinger has been doing for months. We've known it ever since the first disenchanted Cadet fled from his port in Arabia."

"Arabia?"

"Arabia, and here in Mexico, and in Argentina,

Japan, India, twelve in all." Captain Alvarez smiled. "You see, we don't want to stop Ballinger."

Andy stood up, too. He was shocked. "Don't tell me you believe in what he's trying to do?"

"This friend of yours," Alvarez said evasively. "You would protect him no matter what?"

"I'm not sure. I think he's doing the wrong thing. But I made a promise. So many of my friends are there."

With his back turned Alvarez said slowly, "I knew another Marlow once, a brave man who would put principle above friendship if he had to . . . and who made a better friend for it."

Andy felt a lump in his throat. "You knew Frank Marlow? You knew my brother?"

"We rocketed down the star trails many times together, Andy."

"Then try to tell me. If he had a friend ... if he. ..."

"No one can tell you what to do, Andy. You yourself must decide."

"But you already said you won't go to the police. Doesn't that mean you don't want me to go either?"

"Yes, it means that."

"Can you tell me why?"

Alvarez shook his head. "If you hadn't made that promise, Andy, then I could have told you." Alvarez stopped his pacing and asked again, "What are your plans?"

"I guess I haven't any. Space is closed to us forever, I don't have to tell you that. Once I wanted to be an archaeologist but ... I don't know . . . who cares about the past?"

Alvarez's black eyes studied him. "Perhaps more people than you think." The ex-Space Captain began pacing again. His words had been cryptic. Andy didn't know what he possibly could have meant. "If I asked you to, would you withdraw the promise you made to your friend?" Alvarez raised a hand, for Andy was about to speak. "Wait. Before you answer. If you did withdraw it, there is much I could tell you."

"About what?"

"First I have to know I can trust you. But remember this: three other Cadets left Ballinger's Yucatec spaceport. All went to Tuhalpa's village. All drove with Tuhalpa to Merida. All flew from Merida to Mexico City. I saw them all."

Andy shook his head. "I gave Turk my word. I can't go back on it."

"Your brother. . . ."

"My brother is dead."

Captain Alvarez turned his back again. "The ramjet he was piloting crashed at Stavanger Airport in Norway."

"You know about that?"

"I know ... all about it. What will you do when you leave here, Andy?"

"I don't know. There's nothing I. . . ."

"May I make a suggestion? You have a pass to fly wherever you wish. Why don't you fly to Stavanger?"

"What good would that do? Frank's dead."

"You thought a great deal of your brother?"

Andy swallowed hard. "I was the luckiest kid in the world to have a brother like Frank."

"Very well. Then I repeat: go to Stavanger, Andy. He flew the New York-Stavanger run many times. The people who knew him, his friends, are in Norway. He crashed there." Alvarez went on, again mysteriously, "Perhaps the people there who called Frank Marlow their friend could tell you things I am unable to tell you here."

Andy didn't answer right away, but he knew what his answer would be. Maybe Alvarez was right, he thought. Maybe meeting the people who had known Frank in Norway would help Andy decide what to do with his own life.

"I'll go," he said finally. "I guess I should have gone as soon as Captain Strayer told me Frank was dead."

Surprisingly, Alvarez disagreed. "I think not. I think it is well you saw Ballinger's spaceport and learned Ballinger's plans."

"I can't understand you at all," Andy said rashly. "One minute I get the impression you don't like Reed Ballinger; the next it's as if you admire him tremendously."

Alvarez's small mouth became prim. "There is much to admire about a man like Reed Ballinger. He is a born leader of men. He is a superb pilot. He is brave and strong-willed." Alvarez concluded, "But with his bravery and willfulness he has done humanity more harm than any man in modern history, and if he is allowed to go through with his plans it will mean war from here to Canopus, such a war as humanity and the other intelligent races of the Galaxy have never known."

"Then why don't you stop him? If you know all about him, why don't you. . . ."

"We can't because we need him."

"You keep saying that: we need him. Who do you mean?"

"If you catch the night ramjet to New York," Alvarez said, "you can be in Norway in the morning."

Chapter 7^

THE GREAT ramjet lines cruise in the upper stratosphere at fifty thousand feet.

There the sky is a deep, velvety blue, as close to the black star-studded immensity of space itself as an ex-Cadet on an earthbound world can come.

Andy sat at the window amidships in the huge liner, staring out at the deep, deep blueness. It was early morning, and the ramjet, at two thousand miles per hour, was bound from New York to what had been Stavanger Interstellar Spaceport in Norway and was now a planetary airport.

It was late spring, and with the blossoms in full bloom along Norway's fjords the New York-Stavanger run was busy. Norway in late spring was a perfect vacation land.

Of the two hundred passengers aboard the ramjet, only Andy wasn't in a holiday mood. Almost, he felt contempt for his fellow passengers. Tourists, holiday bound, they seemed unaware of the Edict that had outlawed Earth from space. But then Andy realized

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his attitude wasn't fair; the Edict hadn't been in effect long enough for the economic pinch of isolation to be felt on Earth. Why shouldn't they enjoy themselves? This year, or next year, or perhaps the one after that, Earth would become a poor, overcrowded planet, with not enough jobs to go around, maybe not even enough food.

The attitude of his fellow passengers toward Andy was one of indifference, for Ruy Alvarez had given him a change of clothing in Mexico and he no longer wore the telltale Cadet jumper. Remembering the ugly scene at New Mexico Spaceport, he decided he was lucky.

Just as he decided that, the public address system of the liner squawked on, and a voice announced, "Attention please, ladies and gentlemen. Fasten your seat belts. We are losing altitude now and approaching Sola Airport in Stavanger. We are due to land in fifteen minutes."

Sola Airport, Andy knew, was the old name for Stavanger Interstellar Spaceport. Now they were using it again, as if, this soon, the very thought of space was alien to them.

He looked out the window, and far ahead under the wing where the shoal waters were pale blue he could see the green-gray of the Norwegian headlands near Stavanger. He guessed their altitude at about fifteen thousand feet; the ramjet had gone into a long descending glide.

Perhaps Frank had come down like this, Andy thought, suddenly to lose control of the big liner and meet shattering death on the low, rugged mountains below.

"My brother used to work here," Andy told the uniformed man at the information desk a half hour later. "What as?"

"A pilot. He was Frank Marlow. I wonder if you could. . . ."

"Frank Marlow? Say, I remember. Come to think of it, he looked something like you." The man stared down at his desk top suddenly. "Wait a minute. He . . . died, didn't he?"

"That's right," Andy said. "He crashed here. If I can, I want to find out exactly how it happened." The words came with surprising ease, as if they had nothing to do with Andy Marlow and his big brother Frank who had died. But Andy's eyes were smarting.

". . . Captain Olafson," the man was saying.

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

"Captain Olafson knew your brother. He's in the ready-room now. If anybody can tell you what happened, OIlie can." The man scribbled a pass for Andy and gave him directions.

After thanking him, Andy went across the big rotunda of the terminal building, then up a ramp to the ready-room where half a dozen uniformed pilots were sitting around drinking hot coffee and smoking.

"I'm looking for Captain Olafson," Andy said to the nearest pilot.

"You're not just looking for him, you re looking at him. What can I do for you, son?"

Captain Olafson was a giant of a man, close to six and a half feet tall, with enormous shoulders and arms. He had a red face and an unruly thatch of white-blond hair.

"I m Andy Marlow. I. . . ."

Captain Olafson didn't let him finish. Instead, a huge hand pounded Andy's back as Olafson's voice boomed, "Frank's brother! Sure, I should have known it, son. Maybe you could stand a few pounds, but except for that you're the image of him. What brings you to Stavanger ... as if I didn't know." For some reason, Olafson winked.

Puzzled, Andy said: "I want to find out exactly how my brother died."

The expectant grin that had followed the wink on Olafson's big red face vanished. He scowled at Andy. The big shoulders moved in a shrug. "Exactly how he died, is it?"

"That's right."

"Well, there isn't much to tell. We had an engine failure on one of the big babies here in Sola. Frank flew to Oslo in a jet-copter to ferry back a spare ram-jet"

"Then there weren't any passengers when he crashed?"

"No, just Frank and his co-pilot. By the time they flew the ramjet in from Oslo, fog had shrouded the entire coast from Bergen south. They made an instrument landing, but something went wrong. She came down on one wing and bellied over. The co-pilot died instantly. Frank was taken to the hospital here in Stavanger, critically injured."

"He died there?"

Captain Olafson looked long at Andy before answering. Finally he said, "He was badly injured, son. It was a miracle he stayed alive that long. Maybe they can tell you more at the hospital." Olafson finished his coffee. "Matter of fact, you can see my sister Freya there. She's a nurse, and she was on the emergency ward when they brought Frank in. That's all I can tell you."

Andy nodded, and then because he'd always been outspoken and frank, and because Captain Olafson seemed at the same time both friendly and somehow lacking in sympathy, he said, "Were you Frank's friend?"

"Yes, I was."

"Spaceman?"

Olafson scowled. "I wish I had been. I washed out ten years ago, son, and took to ramjets instead, but that doesn't mean I didn't recognize a good spaceman when I saw one. Your brother was one of the best."

"You're hiding something from me, aren't you?"

"Hiding something? Why should I?"

"I don't know. I'm asking you."

"You asked me about the crash, and I told you. What else did you expect?"

Before Andy could answer, a loudspeaker on the wall blared, "Captain Olafson, board your plane. Captain Olafson, board your plane."

Olafson headed for the door. He turned there to tell Andy, "See my sister at the hospital, son. See Freya."

And then he was gone.

Freya Olafson had just completed her tour of duty when Andy reached the hospital. It was a large plasti-glass-walled building perched on a rocky bluff above the waters of the Stavanger Fjord. When Andy reached the reception desk, a voice behind him said,

"You must be Andy."

He whirled, surprised. Coming toward him in her pale blue nurse's uniform was a tall, pretty girl with silver-blond hair. She had big blue eyes the same deep color as the waters of the fjord. She was smiling.

"Miss Olafson?"

"Yes." Her voice was low-pitched, deep for a woman's, but musical.

"How did you know who I was?"

"Looking at you, anyone can tell. It is like seeing your brother all over again, a younger edition." Though Freya Olafson's English was excellent, her voice had the cadence and lilt of someone who felt most at home with the Norwegian language.

"I've been told that before," Andy said. "But how did you know I was coming?"

Freya's cheeks dimpled. "I could say my brother called me from Sola Airport."

"You could, except that he went to board his plane."

"Well then, Captain Alvarez called me from Mexico."

That surprised Andy. "He did? What's so important about me?"

"Every Cadet or ex-spaceman who defects from Reed Ballinger is important to us."

"I came here to find out all I could about my brother," Andy said.

"I can tell you everything you want to know," Freya answered.

Andy nodded slowly. They went outside together into the bright transparent northern sunlight.

Stavanger Fjord was not one of the awesome chasms like Hardanger, Sogne, and Geiranger to the north. Instead, it looked almost as tranquil as a lake surrounded by wooded hills, the pines so thick on them they looked black. But Andy knew the water was sea water and incredibly deep. It mirrored the pines on its still surface. A small white hovercraft went swiftly up the fjord like a stone scaled on the water. From it Andy heard faintly the sound of singing. Except for the hovercraft, to walk along the shore of Stavanger Fjord was to open the pages of a history book to a quieter, simpler time.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Finally Freya said, "You asked what is so important about you, Andy, and I told you that every Cadet who defects from Reed Ballinger is important to us. Do you know what happens to every Cadet who flees from one of Ballinger s spaceports? Through an intermediary like Ruy Alvarez, he is sent here to Norway."

"Then Alvarez was just humoring me when he told me to find out about my brother? He wanted me to come here anyway?"

"I suppose . . . yes . . . you could put it that way. Because he couldn't tell you the real reason we wanted you to come."

"Why not?" But Andy answered his own question. "Oh, now I get it. Because I'd made a promise to a friend that I wouldn't betray Ballinger. Is that what you mean?"

"Andy, listen to me. The most valuable recruits we can get are Cadets or ex-spacemen like you."

"There are thousands of us who've been exiled back to Earth. Why am I so special?"

"Because you spent some time with Ballinger.Because you have friends at one of Ballinger's spaceports."

"Now look," Andy said, exasperated. "First Ruy Alvarez gave me the big mystery treatment, then your brother did, and now you are. What's happening?"

Freya stopped walking. Behind her were the waters of the fjord and the dark pine-clad hills. "What would you say, Andy, if I told you Reed Ballinger wasn't the only one determined to return to space? What would you say if I told you we were, too?" Freya laughed. "You look shocked."

"I'd say you were as bad as he was. I'd say Lambert Strayer was right. I'd say anyone who tried to blast his way back into space. . . ."

"But I never said anything about blasting our way back into space. For one thing, someone must go if Ballinger goes, if for no other reason, than to prevent him from starting an interstellar war."

"That's not true," Andy bristled. "If you wanted to stop him, you could stop him right here on Earth."

Andy stared at her accusingly, and Freya said slowly, "But that is precisely the point. We do not want to stop him."

"You just said. . . ."

"Perhaps someone can explain it to you better than I can. Captain Lambert Strayer is here in Norway."

That surprised Andy. "He is? Is he one of the people you and Ruy Alvarez keep talking about?"

"Yes."

"And he's going to explain things to me? Then why didn't he do it in White Sands?"

"I already told you. The more recruits we get who know Ballinger's forces, who have worked with them, the better it is for us. But it wasn't Lambert Strayer I was talking about. Someone else who was in it from the very beginning can tell you what we are trying to do even better than Strayer can."

Andy waited. He was aware again of Freya's smile and aware too that she was smiling and almost crying at the same time. Her eyes had filled with tears.

And then as the tears of incredulous disbelief and joy sprang to his own eyes, too, he heard Freya's words, "Ruy Alvarez left it to me whether to tell you or not. I am taking you north to our headquarters, Andy. Now, this afternoon. There, one of the greatest spacemen who ever lived will tell you all you want to know. His name is Frank Marlow, Andy. He isn't dead. Your brother isn't dead."

Chapter o

Land of the Midnight Sun

THERE WERE the roar of the jet-copter's rotors and the whine of the wind past its thin-skinned fuselage. There were the deep silver fingers of the mighty fjords far below, poking into the mountainous coast of western Norway, and later the snow ridges and eternally snow-capped peaks and glaciers of the Jotunheim mountains, and still later the broad vistas of tundra country above the Arctic Circle. There was the square back of the taciturn pilot whose name Andy never learned. And most of all there was Freya, telling him about his brother.

"The crash was just as Ollie must have told you," she said. "Frank's co-pilot died instantly. He was a German named Speer, who had been a Space Captain with Frank. Your brother was badly injured. When they took him to the hospital, we hardly had hope. He had lost a great deal of blood, and both his arms and one leg were fractured. Almost miraculously, there were no severe internal injuries. After a week, he was out of danger. After two . . ." here Freya smiled

79

". . . it was hard to keep him in bed. And after three, the first man to flee from Ballinger's spaceports contacted us. That was the first time we had heard of what Reed Ballinger wanted to do. It was what Frank had been waiting for." "What was?"

"Ballinger. If his fleet actually leaves Earth—and it will—we can leave, too."

"But what does that have to do with. . . ."

"Later. Frank will tell you. We are almost there."

Andy leaned forward in his seat and peered out the window. The jet-copter had dropped closer to Earth. Andy saw the flat tundra, a range of low pine-covered hills, a little valley beyond them with the glistening silver thread of a river twisting through it . . . and in the valley surrounded by row after row of tiny rectangles that Andy realized were small buildings, a single enormous spaceship.

It stood, tail down, near the girders of its gantry, proud slim nose pointing at the sky. It seemed poised and expectant, as if ready to blast off momentarily.

"That is the old 'Thule III'," Freya said. "Your brother's ship on his last command. An accident was arranged when it was sent to a European base for dismantling, and the authorities think 'Thule III' lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, as you can see, it is here. In it we will win our way back to space again."

"A single spaceship, against the rockets of the Monitor Satellites?"

"Yes, Andy. A single spaceship. But we have a weapon Reed Ballinger never thought of."

"Then you are going to blast your way back into space," Andy said, trying unsuccessfully to check the anger in his voice.

"Perhaps you can call it that. 'Thule IIT has been renamed. Now it is the 'Nobel,' named for the nineteenth century Swede, Alfred Nobel, who gave the world dynamite and lived to regret it and to establish the prizes given in his name."

"Nobel?" Andy repeated the man's name. It sounded familiar.

"Yes. And the most coveted prize conferred in his name was the Nobel Peace Prize. That will be our secret weapon, Andy."

"What will? I don't understand."

"Ballinger showed the Galaxy the violence we human beings are capable of and, if he has his way, will do so again. Nobel invented dynamite in the pre-atomic age and lived to see the world ravaged by terrible wars his invention made possible. Alfred Nobel established his peace prize to honor the greatest achievements of mankind in his time." Freya finished, "The ship which is his namesake will take into space a record of humanity's proudest achievements. Not achievements for war and destruction, Andy, but for peace. Our secret weapon will be the history of mankind. Despite the Genghis Khans and Neros and Hitlers and Stalins and Ballingers, we think it is a good history and a glorious one. We will offer it to the Galaxy as our answer to the Edict."

Freya was breathless when she finished speaking. A moment later, the little jet-copter landed in the shadow of the huge spaceship "Nobel."

A single figure came running toward them, taller than Andy but not so lean.

It was Frank.

"Just stand there a minute. Let me look at you. By space, you ve grown," Frank said exuberantly in his deep voice. "You're almost as tall as I am. Stand still, will you?" Frank grinned. "Are you going to slobber all over me or something? Let me have a look at you."

Andy didn't say anything. He couldn't talk. He pounded Frank's arms, one hand on each side of him, until his brother said, "Hey, go easy. They were broken once." Then he stood back and just stared at Frank and had a wild impulse to throw his head back and laugh. But he knew if he did that he'd probably bawl like a baby. Finally he managed to say, "I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead. I thought. . . ."

"I get the idea," Frank said, still grinning. "You thought I was dead." Andy was grinning, too, by then, and he felt the tears on his cheeks, but he didn't care. Frank turned to Freya and said, "This specimen of composed teen-ager is my brother Andy."

"As if I didn't know," said Freya with a smile. "You practically look like twins."

"Who, us?" Frank said. "Sometimes I almost feel old enough to be his great-grandfather. Why, I was all of eleven years old when he uttered his first cry. Nobody could understand it, except of course me. What he was bawling about was that he wanted to go to space."

Freya laughed. "Two men, and they are so happy to see each other again that one can hardly talk and the other can't stop talking long enough to. . . ."

"Oh yeah," Frank interrupted her. "A minor detail I forgot to mention, sprout. This Viking-style woman over here is Freya Olafson. One of these days now— say as soon as we clear up this Edict business—she's going to be Freya Marlow."

"Can you do it?" Andy said.

"Well, she claims she'll have me."

"No, I mean the Edict. Can you . . . did you say you were going to get married?"

"Don't look so surprised, sprout. It happens to the best of spacemen."

It was almost midnight. The sun hung low on the horizon but did not, and would not, dip below it. Here only fifty miles below North Cape, the northernmost tip of Scandinavia that looked out across the Arctic Ocean to the North Pole, the sun remained above the horizon for more than six weeks from early June to late July. Now with its lambent light streaming in through the windows of Frank's room, Andy and his brother and Lambert Strayer were talking. They had been at it for hours, and instead of feeling sleepy as he should have, Andy felt exhilarated.

". . . can imagine how I felt when I received word that Frank was still alive," Strayer said. "My job was placement of the returning Cadets, not just at White Sands but all over the world. I was always on the move, and even though the base here in Norway has an underground communications network on every continent, it's good but it's not that good. So by the time the news that Frank was still alive caught up with me, you'd already left White Sands, Andy. I tried to find you but couldn't."

Strayer shrugged. "You'll have to forgive me, boy. Not knowing any different myself, I told you your brother was dead. Add that to the fact that you looked so . . . well, so unsettled and mixed up, as if you didn't care what happened to you, and you wound up doing what so many ex-Cadets did. You joined one of Reed Ballinger's camps."

"But why didn't Ruy Alvarez tell me Frank was still alive?" Andy protested.

"You'll have to forgive Captain Alvarez for another reason. He was concerned about you. From what you said he was afraid you still had strong ties with some of Ballinger's men. And Captain Alvarez is dedicated, boy. He took it on himself to decide that a little more uncertainty would help you. Though he could have told you in Mexico that Frank was still alive, he figured a dramatic meeting, like the one you had today, would go a long way toward opening your eyes."

"From what you've seen so far, sprout," Frank asked, "how do we shape up compared to Ballinger?"

"Why ask me? I'm just. . . ."

"Freya said you were ready to accuse us of taking a page out of Ballinger's book," Frank reminded him.

"Sure, but I didn't know then what I know now. Ballinger takes ex-Cadet pilots like my friend Turk and makes gunners out of them. From what I've been able to gather, you're collecting a kind of . . . uh, graphic history of humanity's achievements. Right?"

"Right," said Lambert Strayer.

"Then I guess that answers your question."

Frank said, "They're repairing the Star Brain, sprout. When it's in business again, we want to be there. We've assembled all the top men in all the sciences and arts who'll listen to us. Each one is preparing a summary of what's been done in his own field through five thousand years of history. They're going to help us tell Earth's real story to the Star Brain, because like us they're convinced if they're just given the chance to tell it, no single rash act of a Captain Ballinger could possibly cancel out all that's worth-while in the past, present, and future of our planet. If we're right and if they're right . . . we hope the Star Brain will give us another chance in space." Frank scowled. "Don't mind the speech, Andy. I'm all wrapped up in this business."

"After all," Lambert Strayer said, "the one thing the

Star Brain fears more than anything else is war on a vast interstellar scale. That's why we've been ruled out of space. What we hope to prove is that Earth's left its days of warfare far behind."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Andy asked.

"Such as what?" Frank said.

"Reed Ballinger. If his fleet blasts off, they'll undo whatever good you can do. As far as the Star Brain's concerned, they'll prove the Edict was justified."

"There's one thing you re forgetting," Frank said. "The Monitors, sprout. If a single ship like the 'Nobel' ventured into space, they'd blast it to dust in seconds. But if Ballinger's fleet blasts off and we time our takeoff to match his, Ballinger's ships would decoy the Monitors. We'd have a chance to get through."

The idea hadn't occurred to Andy, but now he could see the logic in it. Still, he thought, there'd be trouble, and he voiced his objection aloud. "But if some of Ballinger's ships get through, and if they attack the Star Brain again. . . ."

"Whoa, slow down," Frank said. "First place, Ballinger's fleet probably will get through. If we didn't think it would, we couldn't go ahead with our plans. We don't want to see thousands of ex-spacemen slaughtered needlessly by the Monitors, even if they are Ballinger's crews."

"The Monitors are geared to stop minor violations," Lambert Strayer said. "A single ship, two or three of them perhaps, but not a ship armed to the teeth and certainly not a fleet of more than four hundred ships."

"Ballinger's whole fleet," Frank pointed out, "is armed to the teeth. Isn't it?"

"That's right," Andy agreed.

"Okay. They take care of the Monitors for our own passage. They wouldn't have killed anyone, because the Monitors are not manned."

"Back to somebody forgetting something," Andy protested. "What about the fleet that guards the Star Brain? It's manned."

"Sure," Frank said. "The Star Brain's going to give us trouble. It has, all along, since the Capellan dispute, even forgetting Reed Ballinger for the moment."

"What do you mean?" Andy asked.

"Normally, the Brain maintains radio communication through subspace with every civilized world in the Galaxy. But after the Brain ruled in favor of Capella and against Earth—this was before Ballinger bombed it, remember—Earth sent through a protest. It was ignored. We tried again, and again the Brain didn't answer us. From its point of view it had no reason to: its decisions are irrevocable. Then along came Ballinger with his bomb, and then the Brain was put out of commission. Obviously, if it ignored our protest before Ballinger came along, it has a hundred times the reason to ignore any radio message we send now that the Edict's been enforced. We are outlaws here on Earth. As far as the Star Brain is concerned, we're just the little planet that isn't there.

"So the only way we can get through to the Star Brain is, literally, by getting through to it in space. And of course the guardian fleet is manned. Well just have to take our chances with it. But remember this: we hope that by the time we get there every ship in Ballinger's fleet will be on our side/'

"You're kidding," Andy blurted. "How's that going to happen?"

"Like this. Ballinger needs all the recruits he can get. Some of his defectors are going to start filtering back to his bases. When the time comes, they'll take over his ships."

"They will?" Andy said.

And Frank nodded. "You will, sprout. Because you're going to be one of them."

Chapter 9 peace M»»

THE HIGH tundra country above the Arctic Circle had never seen anything like it. Even the sun, here in this summer of perpetual daylight, seemed to stand still in awe and watch.

Mankind was assembling the strangest weapon ever devised.

In the bustling camp south of Hammerfest on the North Cape, under the thrusting spire of the waiting spaceship "Nobel," scientists from all over the world had come in answer to Frank Marlow's and Lambert Strayer's summons. Their task: in a few short weeks to assemble a history of humanity to show the Star Brain and the other civilized races of the Galaxy as proof that Earth had earned its place in the concert of worlds.

Andy was put to work under a small, bespectacled Austrian named Dr. Seys. He had a chirping, birdlike voice and infectious energy and enthusiasm. He had been an expert in Greek and Roman civilization at the University of Vienna.

"They tell me you know some archaeology, yes?" he asked Andy on their first meeting. "Well, sir, just a little."

"A little? Bah, there is no such thing. Either you know archaeology, or you do not know archaeology. Would you fly with me if I said I knew a little astroga-tion?"

"No, but. . . ." Andy started. "Is archaeology any different?" "No, but they said you needed a technician who. . . ."

"I cannot make an archaeologist of you. Do not expect me to make one of you in a few days. Are you clever with your hands?"

"Well, I. . . ."

"We are building a scale model of the Acropolis, the High City, of Athens, as it was at the end of the fourth century B.C. By then, of course, my young friend, the light of Athens had begun to wane, but there were still some buildings on the Acropolis which . . . did you say you were clever with your hands or not?"

"You didn't give me a chance to say so," Andy told Dr. Seys boldly, and the little man smiled.

"Yes, that is true. Indeed I didn't. The model is of plaster, Mr. Morrow."

"Marlow, Dr. Seys."

"Morrell, Morrow, what is the difference? The plaster model will be built to an exact scale of one to one-thousand. We want it to be perfect, and it will be perfeet. Do you know why I have agreed to do this?" Before Andy could answer, Dr. Seys chirped on, "After all, you must realize that I left Vienna in the middle of the summer semester, and my students do not even know where I have gone or why. Well, Mr. Morrell, don't just stand there gaping. Do you know why I have agreed to help?"

"No, sir," Andy managed to say before Dr. Seys was talking again.

"Because of the hundred worlds that have produced a reasonably high order of civilization in the Galaxy, we know absolutely nothing about the history of any of them. It is as if they have all appeared, full blown, with the advent of the interstellar spaceship." Dr. Seys was pacing in a rapid circle around Andy with his small, frail hands clasped behind his back. "Spaceships, bah. I hate them. They bring alien peoples together, they bridge unthinkable chasms of space—a hundred light years, two hundred, a thousand—and what do we know of each other? We know that the Arcturans can produce cobalt bombs as deadly as ours. We know that the Sirians have a vast store of nerve gas to contaminate the atmosphere of any world foolish enough to attack Sirius."

"Yes, but. . .

"We do not know one solitary fact about the past history of the Arcturans. We know nothing of the Sirians as a civilization. We do not know their past greatness or their future hopes. We do not know if their civilizations are as old as ours or older or only perhaps half so old." Dr. Seys took a deep breath. He had been talking so fast that, as far as Andy could tell, it was his first.

"Once, long ago," he went on, "a German wrote a book about the tyranny of Greece over Germany. We Germanic people. . . ."

"I never knew Germany and Greece fought a war, Dr. Seys."

"War? Who is talking of war? The tyranny is a tyranny of the intellect. We Germanic peoples love it. We feel Periclean Greece was the bedrock of civilization on Earth, the solid foundation on which all subsequent civilizations have built. That is the tyranny I meant. But don't you see, Mr. Moran, if Greece gave Earth the high beginnings of so much of our philosophy and art and drama and architecture and law and morality, isn't it possible that on Fomalhaut or Aldebaran or Centauri a parallel situation can be found? We know nothing of those people. Nothing. That is why I am doing this."

"I beg your pardon," Andy said. "You lost me."

"Because if we reach the Star Brain with the story of mankind's past, the others from all the farflung worlds of the Galaxy will come, too. To watch us, young man. And in watching they will learn about us. And if they learn about us, they may decide to let us learn about them. What I hope for, Mr. Moran, is the start of the first exchange of cultural information among the intelligent races of the Galaxy. What is Procyon's Greece? Who were Deneb's Hellenes?

What was it in the past of the Eriadnians which made them develop telepathy as a means of communications? Why is the number four of mystic significance to the Antareans?

"Consider, Mr. Morgan. We human beings have been in space barely two hundred years. But subspace drive, making journeys among the stars possible, we didn't develop until two generations ago. To laymen on Earth, the distances are still unthinkable; young man, there are as yet no pleasure trips among the stars. Our ships were crammed with technicians, engineers, miners, each one with a specific job. The same is true of the ships of every other world. Not only that, but each world has always been jealous of the mining rights assigned to it by the Star Brain. And each has been even more afraid of the military might of all the others. I ask you, Mr. Morgan, is this a good basis for mutual understanding? It has been impossible under the circumstances. Through fear, through suspicion, through distrust and misunderstanding, we know no more about each other than we did before subspace travel made interstellar flights possible. We all are ostriches with our heads in the sand.

"A hundred worlds, my boy, and a hundred million mysteries for us to solve. This can be the start of a new day in the Galaxy. That is why I am here." Dr. Seys took his second deep breath. "Are you clever with your hands?"

"I'll try to help, sir."

And, in the days that followed, Andy tried. Under the part-time supervision of the volatile Austrian, he and five other ex-Cadets painstakingly built the plaster model of the Athenian High City from the collections of plans and pictures Dr. Seys had brought from Vienna to Norway. The indefatigable Dr. Seys was busy with a half-dozen other projects too. Once he paced past the plaster model and said to Andy's back:

"The good with the bad, we must show them everything. No lies, no half-truths, no brain-washing, Mr. Morgan. The High City is beautiful, yes? But all was not beautiful in the fourth century B.C. If Athens was the shining pinnacle of civilization, Sparta to the south never got over its militaristic ways. Sparta was an armed camp dedicated to its war goddess, Artemis Orthia. And in the hills to the north, in the rude savage cities of Macedon, Philip and his son Alexander after him waited patiently to pounce on the civilization Athens had produced. We are doing a map in plaster, too, my young friend. The ancient world from Greece to India, and the trail of Alexander's conquests. We will show them the bad with the good. We will show them the Earth as it was. It is for them to decide whether Earth is to be judged by the philosophy of a Plato and the drama of a Euripides or the barracks-life of a Spartan and the swords and shields of an Alexander."

Dr. Seys's projects were ambitious, but they were just a few among the many that were being assembled in Norway. In plaster, in faithful reproductions of works of art, in translation of the world's great literature into a dozen interstellar languages, in maps and drawings and books and microfilm, five thousand years of human history, all the glory and vanity and tragedy of a civilization—of all the civilizations that had brought Earth to this particular point in time and space—were being collected and systematized for their strange journey across the Galaxy.

The work was exciting and all-consuming. No one had time to ask himself the one question that really mattered: when the time came, would they be able to stop Reed Ballinger, keep him from bombing the Star Brain? And, even if they did, would the presentation of mankind's history overcome the Edict that ruled Earth out of space?

After work each night, Andy would talk for a while with Frank and Captain Strayer. Frank was busy supervising the loading of the "Nobel," and Strayer was over-all superintendent of the activities at the base. They'd all be pleasantly fatigued from their long day's work, but still the talk was optimistic.

"I've never seen such a group of . . . well, diverse people," Strayer said once, "pitch in on a job and work so well together. It's as if they all realize man's future will be determined by what they do here."

"Or what we can stop Ballinger from doing once we get to space," Frank pointed out.

There was no darkness, and Andy found that he needed little sleep. They worked sixteen hours a day, and when morning was heralded by the sun's rising a little higher in the sky, they were ready and eager to work again.

"Our key problem," Frank said one night, "is this. Everything we achieve here will come to nothing unless we can blast off precisely when Ballinger does. Because unless we do, the Monitors will blow us out of the sky." He turned to Andy. "That's where you come in. Not just you, I mean all of you who'll be going back to the Ballinger bases. You'll have to get the word back to us here in Norway."

"How can you be so sure Ballinger will let us come back?"

"He's got to. He's undermanned. Besides, I know Reed Ballinger. I flew with him several times, sprout. He's what they call an anti-intellectual. Feed him the right kind of story about how you got fed up with all the professorial goings on around here, and he'll accept you back with open arms."

Just then Freya poked her blond head in through the doorway. "Frank, you promised," she said, pouting-

Frank stood up. "Well, got to be going." "Going?" said Andy. "You've been on your feet sixteen hours."

Frank smiled. "Supper picnic. We found a little lake that. . . ."

"Shh!" cautioned Freya. "Advertise it and we'll have to wait in line to push our boat into the water."

They left, arm in arm.

"What are you scowling about?" Captain Strayer asked Andy. "Who me? Scowling?"

"Sure. An old spacedog like your brother ought to consider himself lucky she'll have him. Freya's one of the nicest girls I ever met."

Andy couldn't agree with him more. "I guess I just look forward to these talk sessions we've been having," he admitted ruefully.

"Sure, but Frank's probably the hardest-working man in camp, and he. . . ."

Captain Strayer's voice trailed off. Outside someone shouted, "New recruit!"

A moment later Andy heard the sound of a jet-copter droning down toward them. He ran outside with Captain Strayer right behind him. Though they were all busy compiling the history of a world, they all paradoxically were cut off from the here and now of that world. A new recruit meant information from the outside, and a crowd had gathered. Even Freya and Frank had postponed their picnic. Standing side by side, Frank with a picnic basket over his arm, Freya with a small rucksack on her back, they were waiting with the others.

When the jet-copter landed, first out was the same stocky pilot who had brought Andy and Freya north from Stavanger.

Right behind him was the ex-spaceman and smuggler . . . and Reed Ballinger's lieutenant . . . Gault.

He was immediately the center of attention. A dozen ex-Cadets and Space Captains clustered around him, shouting questions.

"What base were you at?"

"When's Ballinger going to blast off?"

"They have any word of us in the outside world?"

"Does Ballinger have anybody left?"

"How many ships does he have now?"

Frank worked his way close to Gault and shouted, "Give him a chance, men. Give him room. Wherever he comes from, he's had a long trip. He looks like the first thing he needs is some rest."

That, Andy realized, was true. Gault, his hair unkempt, his face unshaven, his deep-set eyes like black holes punched in his face, his jumper in tatters, looked as if he'd just come off a battlefield.

Someone cried, "Wait a minute. I know him! That's Harry Gault. He recruited me for Ballinger in White Sands. He's Ballinger's right-hand man in Mexico. What's he doing here is what I want to know!"

There were other shouts of hostility as others recognized the little ex-smuggler. But Gault bellowed, "Same as you. Same as any of you. I got fed up with Captain Reed Ballinger."

Andy saw Captain Strayer speaking earnestly to Frank, saw his brother nod. Frank took Harry Gault's arm. The little man seemed unsteady on his feet. "Make way, men/' Frank directed. "We're coming through."

The crowd around Gault thinned as its members moved reluctantly aside. Then Frank and Captain Strayer led Gault right past Andy. This close, Andy could see that the ex-smuggler's face was covered with bluish and yellowish bruises. He'd been through plenty, all right. But, Andy thought, he's a turncoat. How can we trust him?

Gault's eyes met Andy's. He smiled and said: "So this is where you disappeared to. I might have known it.

Frowning, Andy watched them enter Strayer's quarters. Why single Gault out for suspicion, Andy asked himself. So many of us, exiled from space, turned to Ballinger first. So many of us are turncoats.

And anyway, if Gault were anything but a new recruit, Frank and Captain Strayer would be able to find out.

"I don't know," Captain Strayer said later. "I just don't know."

Frank and Freya's picnic was forgotten. Harry Gault had been given quarters of his own, and Frank, Strayer, and Andy were back in Frank's room.

"Well, he came to us like anyone else did," Frank pointed out. "Like my own brother here did."

"That's true," Strayer admitted.

"And he was really through the mill, Captain. You saw it yourself. He was half-starved. He'd been beaten. He made the same contacts anyone else fleeing the base in Mexico would have made—the Indian bus to Merida, the flight to Mexico City, the meeting with Ruy Alvarez, the journey here by ramjet."

"That's just it," Andy said doubtfully. "It's as if the whole thing was carefully planned so Harry Gault could pop in and say, 'I'm here, I'm a fugitive from Reed Ballinger just like the rest of you.'"

"Sure, but the same thing could be said for you."

Andy had no answer to that.

"Listen," Frank said. "Gault can be a lot of help. He says he'll answer anything we ask. He knows exactly how many bases Ballinger has, exactly how many ships. He has a pretty good idea of when Ballinger will blast off."

"So do I," Andy said. "I've been here a week. I spent a day getting here. The day before that, Ballinger said we'd be leaving in two weeks. Which means there are five or six days to go. Can Gault pinpoint it any closer than that?"

"No," Frank admitted, "he can't."

Strayer said, "And, by space, he was Ballingers right-hand man. How can you afford to trust him?"

"How can I afford not to?" Frank asked. "He's a one-man intelligence section on the activities of Reed Ballinger."

"And he knows you think he is," Andy insisted. "Look, Frank, if you piece together the information I can give you and the information you can get from all the others who came here from one or another of Bal-linger's bases, don't you think you could get the same picture Gault can give you?"

"I can and I have. But you've been out of Mexico a week; you just said so. We haven't had a new recruit since then, and now here's Gault. He'll be bringing us up to date."

"Sure, and then what?"

"What do you mean, and then what?"

"I mean why did Gault come here?"

Frank shrugged. "What harm can he do . . ." he began, and Strayer cut him off impatiently.

"Even if he hadn't been working hand in glove with Reed Ballinger, you know the man's reputation. He was drummed out of the space corps as a smuggler, Frank."

Frank stood up. Two vertical grooves had appeared on his forehead, but his lips were smiling. "Okay," he said, "both of you, just how naive do you think I am? I'd like to trust Gault. I'd like to think that even a doubtful specimen like Harry Gault had deserted Ballinger. But I wasn't born last week. I've been bending over backwards talking to you, trying to be as fair to Gault as I can. He'll have to prove himself, I know that."

Listening to his brother, Andy began to feel better. "Let's assume now," Frank went on, "that Ballinger sent him here. Why, I don't know. He'd never

get away with sabotaging the 'Nobel.' It's guarded around the clock. Don't you see, there just isn't much he can do to hurt us. But if he's going to try something, Id like to see what . . . because then we'll know what Ballinger has up his sleeve."

"And meanwhile," Strayer asked, "we go ahead with our plans?"

"Of course. As I see it, Andy and the other 'returnees' ought to be scattering to the Ballinger bases in about forty-eight hours. Ballinger is no dope, and maybe he'll be suspicious of them just as we're suspicious of Gault. But suspicion is not confirmation of guilt, and Ballinger needs all the spacemen he can get. Come to think of it, Gault makes me feel better about the whole thing. Ballinger's bound to treat the 'returnees' the same way we're treating Gault, for the same reason. He's even got more reason to; as I said, he's shorthanded by now. And, if we're lucky, by the time Ballinger realizes what's happening, his ships will be taken over."

"Aren't you getting off orbit?" Andy said. "What about Gault?"

"I'm getting back to that. I still hope we can trust Gault, still hope he's a new recruit like you were. But if he's not. . . . Tell me, does Dr. Seys keep you very busy?"

"We're almost finished w^7ith the Acropolis."

"Then Gault is going to grow a second shadow. Name of Andy Marlow. Now do you feel better?"

Andy felt better, and worse. Everything Frank said made sense, but the one thing they didn't know, assuming Ballinger had sent Gault to spy on them, was what Ballinger was after. Maybe, Andy thought, the answer was back in Mexico.

But if it was, Andy had no way of learning it. All he could do was keep Gault under constant watch.

And hope that Ballinger s war plans in Mexico wouldn't trample all over their peace plans here in Norway.

Chapter 10

War Plans

AT THE secret spaceport in Mexico, Turk was sweating.

He stood rigidly at attention in a little office just off the tarmac of the field. He was facing Captain Bal-linger s desk, and behind Ballinger, who sat for a long time studiously ignoring him, the dazzling tropic sun burned in through the window.

It was an age-old trick. With the sunlight behind Ballinger, every expression that crossed Turk's face would be clear to him, but all Turk could see was the ex-Space Captain's silhouette.

The silhouette went on pretending Turk wasn't there, and in the stifling heat Turk felt the sweat dripping off his chin. Turk didn't know why he'd been sent for. He'd been standing stiffly at attention for half an hour, waiting to find out.

Finally Ballinger leaned back in his chair. "The name is Ayoub, right?"

"Backy Ayoub, yes, sir," said Turk.

More silence. Then:

"A citizen of Turkey, aren't you?"

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"That's right, sir."

"Lieutenant Odet tells me you're making fine progress in gunnery." "I'm glad to hear it, sir."

The silhouette leaned forward. When its arms moved out of the direct sunlight, Turk could see the markings of a senior Space Captain on the sleeves.

"Do you like it here, Ayoub?"

"Begging your pardon, sir?"

"Do you like it here?"

"No," Turk said frankly, and Ballinger laughed.

"Then why do you stay?"

"You said you'd lead us back to space, sir."

"And you want to return to space?"

"More than anything under the sun."

"Why don't you like it here?"

For a while Turk said nothing. "I don't know if I ought to say," he finally answered.

Another laugh from Ballinger. Turk wished he could see the Captain's face. "Go ahead, and stand at ease."

Gratefully, Turk stood at ease. "Well, I guess it's a little like being in prison. We're all cut off from the world; we can't go anywhere; we're . . . like, living in a vacuum."

"That's because we're waiting to go the one place we want to and the one place we're not permitted . . . back to space. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, sir." Turk added boldly, "It's why I'm still here."

"You would have fled otherwise?" "Escape is the word we use, sir. It's happened before."

Captain Ballinger sighed. "I know it has. That's why you're here."

"I don't understand, sir."

There was a long pause. "What was the name of the Cadet you bunked with on Luna?"

"Marlow, sir. Andy Marlow."

"To use your word and not mine, he escaped last week."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you know he was going?" "Do I have to answer that?"

Ballinger stood up abruptly and came out from his shield of sunlight. It was a calculated move; he looked every inch the spaceman, tall, ruggedly handsome, his face severe, but the suggestion of a smile on his lips. In a friendly voice he said, "Cadet Ayoub, nothing you say here will prejudice you. That's a promise. Only silence will."

Turk licked his lips and shifted his weight from left to right foot. "All right. Yes, I knew he was going. I followed him. I wanted to stop him."

"You couldn't?"

"I wouldn't, sir. I didn't intend stopping him by force. I just tried talking him out of it." "And apparently you failed."

"Yes, sir. His mind was made up." "Where was he going, Cadet?" "I don't know, sir."

"Come now, you can do better than that."

"It's the truth. He didn't know himself. He just wanted out."

"Didn't he say anything about . . . Norway?"

"Norway? No, sir."

"Or about Lambert Strayer?"

"You mean the ex-Captain in charge of the White Sands Center?"

"Exactly. But Strayer isn't in White Sands any longer. You're sure you can't tell me where Marlow was going, or why?"

"I'm sure."

"Two things can prejudice you here, Cadet. Silence . . . and lying. How would you like to be earthbound the rest of your life?"

"But sir, I . . ."

"Where did Marlow go?"

"I don't know."

"Had he been in contact with anyone on the outside?"

"Not that I know of."

"What is his brother doing in Norway?"

"You must be mistaken, Captain. His brother is dead."

"His brother is in Norway, recruiting Spacemen just as I am. What do you have to say to that?"

"Just that I wish Andy knew. He thinks his brother's dead."

There were more questions, and more unsatisfactory answers. At last Captain Ballinger said, "Ayoub, if I find out you were lying, you'll spend the rest of your life on Earth. Don't you think we are going to succeed here?"

"I hope so, sir. I want to get back to space."

"We will succeed, Ayoub. Make no mistake about that. We are going to ram the Edict down the Star Brain's mechanical throat. And when we do, after we do, who do you think will be the hero of the day on Earth?"

"Why, you will."

"You know why I'm telling you this?" "No, sir."

"Because one day soon, if I say so, a man can be earthbound for life. One day soon, if I say so, you'll spend the rest of your life in your native country without an exit permit." Ballinger stalked behind the desk again, and once more Turk saw just his silhouette. "You have one more opportunity, Cadet. Did Marlow indicate where he was going? Think before you give me your answer."

"There's nothing to think about, sir. I don't have the slightest idea where he was going, and I don't think he did either."

"Very well, Cadet. Dismissed."

Turk came to attention, saluted, executed a stiff about-face and marched from the office.

For a long time after he had gone, Reed Ballinger sat behind his desk pondering. His plans were shaping up beautifully. They now had several hundred spaceships scattered at twelve secret fields all over Earth. When the day came, and it would be soon, three-quarters of them would be manned. The rest would be drones.

The unmanned drones would be expendable.

They would be launched first, moments before the manned fleet. The Monitor Satellites would home in on them to destroy them, and Captain Ballinger s manned fleets would get through to deep space. Once they cut in their subspace drive, there would be no stopping them until they reached Canopus and the Star Brain hundreds of light years across the Galaxy.

Everything was going beautifully, Ballinger thought again, except for the desertions. War plans that couldn't miss, except that every day he had fewer and fewer men to man his ships.

One way to learn about the unknown enemy was to interrogate Cadets like Ayoub. But that had hardly helped. Ballinger had questioned many of them, here and at the other bases. He believed them as he believed Ayoub. They didn't know where their friends had gone.

But there was another way, and it had worked. Under Ballinger's orders, Harry Gault had deserted.

If a Cadet or spaceman fled the Mexican base, Ballinger had reasoned, he'd probably head for the nearby Indian town. Harry Gault had done that, after reluctantly submitting to a pummeling which would convince the contacts he met. An Indian had hid him and then had driven him by bus to Merida. Gault had called the base from Merida, saying that he'd been instructed to visit an ex-Space Captain named Ruy Alvarez living in Mexico City. He had done that and called again from Mexico City after meeting Captain Alvarez.

Though Harry Gault's reputation was unsavory, he had been in luck. Ruy Alvarez had never heard of him. Resides, on Gault's face was the evidence that he had had to fight his way to freedom.

Alvarez had given Gault instructions to fly to Stavanger, Norway. Before going, he'd been in touch with Captain Ballinger. He'd been nervous and eager, but sure of himself. "Here is one ostrich with one big head in the ground," he had gloated. "Can you imagine that, he never even heard of me!"

"What did you learn?" Ballinger had asked.

"That we're not the only ones planning to return to space."

"You're joking."

"Not on your life."

"Very well, find out who they are. If they're ready to orbit out under my orders, there's no reason why we couldn't get together. We can use all the recruits we can get."

"They wouldn't play ball with you, Captain."

"No? Why not?"

"Because their leaders are Lambert Strayer and Frank Marlow, that's why."

Strayer and Marlow, Ballinger had thought bitterly, a pair of do-gooders. They wouldn't touch him with a launching gantry. But what surprised him more than anything was the fact that they, like himself, were going to flaunt the Edict. They were spacemen, of course; they would hate the Edict as much as he did. But whereas he planned to take the law into his own hands, he knew they wouldn't.

They were going to space in violation of the law; why?

Harry Gault had ramjetted to Norway to find out.

Strayer and Marlow, Ballinger realized, were potentially the enemy. They could be numbered among that group of ex-Space Captains who had blamed Reed Ballinger for the Edict in the first place. It was even possible, since so many of Ballinger's recruits had fled to them via intermediaries like Ruy Alvarez, that Strayer and Marlow were going to space simply to stop his own fleet. If there were another reason, he had to find out what it was.

Harry Gault, by now, was in a position to find out for him. And as soon as Gault got his answer, he'd return to Mexico.

All you needed, Ballinger decided, was a little brains and a little patience.

All you needed, Turk told himself on the gunnery range, was a good eye and a fair head for figures. He had both. He was becoming a more competent marksman every day.

But somehow he didn't feel the elation he should have, and he knew he wasn't the only one. Charlie Sands and others, after their first flush of enthusiasm over the possibility of blasting off into space again, were beginning to wonder.

It was one thing to return to space as free and equal partners in the Galactic Confederacy. It was another to shoot your way back to the star trails.

Would anyone but Reed Ballinger benefit?

Turk computed a gunnery orbit rapidly and pressed the mock-up firing stud. The little pip of light that flashed on the blank screen in front of him indicated that he'd been on target.

Scowling, Turk wondered if maybe Andy hadn't had the right idea after all.

Fleetingly, he wished that he had fled with his friend. He wondered what Andy was doing now.

Chapter 11 Tnadmyi

NOT EVEN Andy knew what it was all about until he reached the underground bunker that would be the operations room for the "Nobel's" launching.

He had spent scores of hours in the Luna Academy operations room, of course, and the bunker in Norway was familiar to him. A spaceship, he knew, didn't pass into its crew's control until escape velocity—more than seven miles a second on Earth and two and a half miles a second on Luna—had been achieved. By then the first-stage rocket, the launching rocket, would have burned out and dropped away. And the launching rocket was guided by the technicians in the operations bunker, not by the crew aboard the spaceship itself.

All he knew, now, was that while working on the model of Athens' Acropolis he had been approached by Dr. Seys who said reluctantly:

"This afternoon history takes a back seat. This afternoon you will report to the operations bunker, my

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young friend. They cannot decide if it is an archaeologist they want you to be or a spaceman."

As it turned out, what they wanted him to be was neither. When Andy reached the bunker and went down the rough-hewn stone stairs, he heard the great door shut behind him. He was the last to arrive. Eleven other ex-Cadets already were waiting, talking quietly. As if the shutting of the door were a signal, they lapsed into silence. Then one of them said:

"Look, here's Marlow. His brother's a bigshot around here. Maybe he can tell us what's going on."

But Andy couldn't. He was as much in the dark as any of them.

The small door to the ready-room at the far end of the bunker opened, and Frank came in. Glancing around, he smiled impartially at the ex-Cadets.

He said, "As you all know, we've asked for volunteers to return to Reed Ballinger's bases. I think you'll be pleased to learn, as I was, that the response was terrific. Of seventy-five ex-Ballinger men here in Norway, all but three or four volunteered. For various reasons, you twelve men have been chosen by Captain Strayer and me. Among you, you represent everv Ballinger base now in operation. Within the next forty-eight hours, you'll be going back, and now Captain Strayer is going to tell you how that will be accomplished."

Frank moved unobtrusively among the ex-Cadets and took his place beside Andy. The ready-room door opened again, and Captain Strayer's tall, white-haired figure strode out.

"Men," he said in his deep voice, and his eyes roved the bunker as he spoke, locking glances briefly with all the ex-Cadets, "some time within the next seventy-two to ninety-six hours, Reed Ballinger's fleet will be blasting off from a dozen secret spacefields all over the world. You all know what he'll be attempting, just as you all know what we are trying to do. Once before, in answer to a decision it reached, Reed Ballinger bombed the Star Brain. The result was the Edict which ruled Earth out of space. Now the Star Brain has been repaired. This time Reed Ballinger intends to finish the job. We, on the other hand, want to show the Star Brain that the rash and unreasoned acts of a Reed Ballinger do not represent the thoughts and desires and hopes of an entire world. We want to show the Star Brain what Earth really is like, with the hope that well be given a second chance in space. Ballinger's aims and ours are incompatible. If he succeeds, we will fail. If we succeed, it will mean he has failed. I don't have to tell you the entire future of mankind is in our hands."

When Captain Strayer paused, there were no shouts of approval or encouragement. Tensely, anxiously, the dozen ex-Cadets waited for his next words. Andy couldn't help remembering another speech, a speech Ballinger had made in Mexico to another group of ex-Cadets and spacemen. Then the stage had been set theatrically. Reed Ballinger had seemed a titanic figure in the darkness, with the torchlights glowing all around him. But Captain Strayer eschewed dramatics. He spoke simply and gravely. Theatrics weren't necessary; he didn't have to convince anyone; he was merely stating the facts.

"We don't have to guess when Ballinger will be blasting off. We know, for dedicated men like Captain Alvarez in Mexico and Captain Kumar in India have done their work well. Reports have been pouring in to us daily; in three days, or four at the most, Ballinger will be ready.

"A dozen reports to a dozen police departments in Mexico, India, Japan, Indochina, Patagonia, and so on, and Reed Ballinger's fleet would never leave the ground. But if his ships remain earthbound, then the 'Nobel' does too, and if the 'Nobel' does, then mankind does. It is our hope that Ballinger's fleet will serve us as a decoy, that the 'Nobel' will escape into deep space under cover of Reed Ballinger's ships.

"If that happens, we have a chance. Because, naturally, we'd still have to convince the Star Brain of our good intentions. We hope the material we have gathered here to represent five thousand years of human achievement will do that.

"Just as important, since we obviously cannot stop Ballinger on Earth, we must at all costs stop him in space. The 'Nobel' is unarmed. And even if it were armed to the teeth, a single ship couldn't hope to turn back Ballinger's huge fleet.

"That is where all of you come in. You are going to serve as agents provocateurs. All our hopes will be riding on your shoulders. I don't have to tell you that once you return to Ballinger's bases, you can expect absolutely no help from us. You will be entirely on your own.

"Once you are in deep space, your task will be to convince Ballinger's crews to mutiny and come under the command of the 'Nobel.' According to Alvarez, Kumar, Dinh, and the others, there's a strong possibility you can do it. Because for every one of you who fled from Ballinger's bases, there are perhaps a dozen or more who have been beset by doubt but who have lacked either the courage or the wisdom to make the complete break. It is these men you will have to win over and, with them as a nucleus, Ballinger's entire fleet.

"Naturally, we can't deluge Ballinger with 'Nobel' deserters at the last moment. If we assume his average base has thirty or forty ships, that means four hundred ships in all . . . or more. And it means that each one of you, aboard just one ship, will have to convince an entire fleet to mutiny some time between the moment they enter subspace and the moment they rendezvous near Canopus.

"As to how you will convince Ballinger's lieutenants that you really have deserted the 'Nobel,' Captain Marlow has developed a cover story for you. The important thing to remember is that Ballinger is impatient with cultural pursuits. He and his men will readily understand the situation if you tell them you joined the 'Nobel' with the hope of reaching space again but found yourself bogged down in history and music and philosophy and art." For the first time Captain Strayer smiled briefly. "If I know Reed Ballinger, he'll greet that kind of cover story with an I-toId-you-so and maybe even with a chuckle. In any event, you'll get the details later.

"As to how you will be able to take over four hundred ships and more—assuming each of you can succeed on even one—that task isn't as insurmountable as it seems, and I need not tell you how much depends on your success. The classic technique of revolution, or of mutiny, is to gain control of the means of communication and use them to make your point. In this case, that means the ships' radios and public address systems. If you can get that far, I hope together we can do the rest. And, if you have got that far, it will mean the audience on your ships will be sympathetic. I'll broadcast to them, or Captain Mar-low will, from the 'Nobel' They'll be given the choice of a return to space for war or for peace.

"If the option they choose is war, then we will have lost. If they choose peace, the ships you have taken over will leave Ballinger's fleet and fall into line behind the 'Nobel.' Then, from then, you'll broadcast similar messages to the entire fleet. What we hope for is a chain reaction of desertions. According to Alvarez and the others, it isn't too much to expect.

And, if we get it, then mankind has a chance to convince the Star Brain."

Captain Strayer smiled again, almost apologetically, and asked, "Are there any questions?"

There were scores of them, but Andy was hardly listening. The plan was an audacious one. If they succeeded, the road to space was open again. If they failed, it was forever closed. And, if they failed, Andy didn't want to think of what would happen to the dozen volunteers, himself included.

Two questions toward the end of the session riveted his attention. The first was asked by a freckle-faced ex-Cadet near Andy, who said:

"Captain, how come you picked Cadets for the job instead of spacemen?"

"Two reasons, lad. In the first place, you'll be dealing primarily with your old classmates at Luna Academy. Because Ballinger's crews are made up mostly of Cadets, not graduated Space Captains. Men like Frank Marlow here tended to take the Edict less . . . well, less obstreperously than you Cadets did. Perhaps that's because experienced Space Captains had first crack at the good jobs on Earth and could be absorbed more easily into an earthbound society than you Cadets could. Perhaps it's also because they have more maturity and patience. A lot of them gravitated here right away, without trying their luck with Ballinger first." Again Captain Strayer smiled wryly. "As I don't have to remind you, many of you Cadets had to see Ballinger for what he was first. I'm talking to twelve of you who did.

"The second reason may be more important. It's this: Ballinger is shorthanded and needs all the help he can get. But even so, if on the eve of departure a dozen veteran spacemen descended on his bases, he'd be suspicious. For all I know he'll be suspicious of turncoat Cadets, too. I won't lie to you; you could be walking into a den of lions. But I think if Ballinger accepts anyone, he'll accept Cadets who can convince him all this highbrow stuff in Norway's got them down. As I said before, Captain Marlow will go into detail on the cover story for you. Does that answer your question?"

It did. But the second question which riveted Andy's attention was a more difBcult one for Captain Strayer to answer. A stocky Cadet standing near the fuel gauges along one wall of the bunker asked:

"What if some of Ballinger's ships refuse to join forces with the 'Nobel,' Captain? What can we do then?"

For a long moment Captain Strayer didn't answer. Then he said, "Alvarez and the others assure us there's discontent at Ballinger's bases. And, till now, their information has been as reliable as the underground railroad which brought all of you here from scattered bases all over the world. For example, their guesses as to when Ballinger will blast off tally with the information we received from Harry Gault who, as you know, was Ballinger's lieutenant before be came here. If they say there is discontent, we can assume there is. Your job is to make it grow."

"Begging your pardon, sir," the stocky Cadet insisted, "but aren't you ducking the issue? What if some of Ballinger's warships still refuse?"

Captain Strayer sighed, looked at Frank, and finally said, "No, Cadet. I ought to beg your pardon. I guess I have been evasive. Not because I wanted to hold anything back from you, but because I didn't want to admit the possibility even to myself. Maybe it is too much to expect; maybe there's no chance whatever that all Ballinger's ships will come over."

"If they don't, what happens, sir?"

Captain Strayer said somberly, "We can only hope enough of them do, because there won't be a weapon aboard the 'Nobel.' Any ships still under Ballinger's command after your mutiny will have to be blasted out of space, as much as we'd hate to do it."

Frank said, "Including any ships on which the mutiny was unsuccessful?"

Strayer nodded. "Yes, Captain. I'm afraid so."

Frank wouldn't meet Andy's glance. The implication was obvious, and they could do nothing about it. If the mutiny failed aboard any ship on which an agent provocateur had been planted, the penalty for failure might unavoidably be death.

"If you'll all step into the ready-room," Frank said, "you'll find copies of your cover stories. I want you to memorize them and then destroy them. Whatever you do, you must know every detail by heart before Freya Olaf son's brother flies you down to Stavanger."

Frank and Andy entered the ready-room first. Just as the operations bunker brought back memories of Luna, the ready-room did, too. There were the stiff, uncomfortable chairs, the big coffee urn, the large bare table, the bright overhead lights, and the rolled-up screen and star charts on the front wall.

"Will you all please gather around the table?" Frank began . . . and then Andy saw his brother's eyes grow wide.

"They're gone!" Frank cried in dismay. "I left them right here on the table. The cover stories are gone."

Even before the impact of his words had been driven home, Frank sprinted toward the door. Andy ran after him and up the stairs that led to ground level. A semicircular wall of concrete blocked off the top of the stairs, for the operations bunker and ready-room had to be protected from radiation.

"I left the door locked," Frank called over his shoulder.

He didn't have to say the rest of it. The lock had been smashed.

When Andy followed Frank around the wall of concrete, he could see the looming skeletal structure of the "Nobel's" launching gantry.

A man was leaning against one of its stanchions, rubbing the back of his head. Andy recognized him as an ex-Senior Class Cadet named Williams. Near him on the ground where it had fallen was an atomic rifle.

"What happened?" Frank said. "Are you all right?"

Senior Cadet Williams groaned. "Now I am. I . . . a few minutes ago I guess it was ... I heard a sound behind me. I started to turn. Something slammed into the back of my head. I . . . I'm sorry, Captain. That's all I remember."

"You didn't see who it was?"

Williams hadn't seen.

Andy said one word, "Gault."

And then he was running again, this time with Frank behind him.

Sprinting along the quarters hallway twenty running strides ahead of Frank, Andy expected Gault's door to be locked. When he reached it, he twisted the knob and lunged.

The door wasn't locked. It burst open, and Andy's momentum carried him into the small room. He lurched across it to the single window.

Behind him the door slammed shut. When he whirled he saw an opened travel case, partially packed, on the bed. Gault was standing in a half-crouch near the door. The little ex-smuggler seemed quite calm. He was even smiling.

Frank pounded on the door. "Open up in there!"

The door was now locked, but the sound of Frank's voice diverted Gault's attention. Andy sprang at him.

Gault fumbled at his belt and drew an atomic pistol. Its charge was minute, Andy knew, but more than enough to kill. He grabbed Gault's arm, and they grappled for the weapon. The door rattled and then shook as Frank drove his shoulder against it.

Though small, Gault had a wiry strength. He couldn't bring the pistol to bear, but Andy couldn't wrench it from his grasp either. They staggered, locked together, across the room. Gault got his hand free and raised it high over his head.

Andy ducked, not quickly enough.

The heavy butt of the atomic pistol slammed into the side of his head. He was aware of his knees hitting the floor and of Gault's receding footsteps. He turned and as his vision blurred saw Gault going through the window.

He was on hands and knees when Frank forced open the door. Mutely Andy raised one hand to point at the window.

Seconds later, he heard Frank's voice, "He's gone."

Then Andy lost consciousness.

Chapter 12 Mexico Again

THE SAME reasons that had prompted Captain Strayer to select northern Norway as the location of Project Nobel were now working in Harry Gault's favor.

Earth's population stood at more than five billion, and even during the exciting decades of interstellar exploration the final frontiers on Earth were being pushed back.

What once had been the uncharted Mato Grosso jungle in Brazil was now cultivated farmland that helped feed South America's billion inhabitants.

Two million square miles of what had been the Sahara desert were irrigated by sea water piped over the Atlas Mountains after its salt content had been removed, and even the fabled, remote city of Timbuktu was a thriving center of commerce.

The Gobi desert was a prairie which fed the plumpest cattle on Earth; hundreds of huge farms sprawled across what once had been the basin of the Congo River; for the first time in its history the yearly

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flood of the great Nile was fully controlled and exploited so that Egypt had become a vast grainery.

Only the high northern latitudes, because their growing season was too short and their soil too poor, hadn't changed in hundreds of years. In Norway, the expanse of tundra country from the Arctic Circle north to Hammerfest and North Cape still supplied barely enough forage for the nomadic Lapps and their reindeer herds, and civilized settlements were few and widely scattered. Originally, the Project Nobel base had been an experimental rocket base for the Scandinavian countries. It was surrounded by thousands of square miles of bleak tundra covered by many feet of snow all but a few months of the year. Dotted with lakes and bare hills and threaded with scores of raging rivers that carried the melted snows to the sea, it remained much as it had been for thousands of years.

If you were a fugitive its river gorges and clumps of trees, stunted by frost and wind, offered numerous hiding places. Even with the eternal summer sunlight you could elude your pursuers; there were so many places to hide.

Captain Strayer learned this the hard way after Harry Gault's escape from the base. Search parties set out on foot; helicopters went aloft; a nearby encampment of Lapps was recruited to assist the searchers.

None of them so much as found Harry Gault's trail, let alone the man himself.

Meanwhile, Andy, his head bandaged and still painful and tender, sat with his brother in Captain Strayer's office. Strayer was saying:

"It's no use. We'll never find him now if we haven't already. I'm calling the 'copters in."

"Then what?" Frank asked.

Captain Strayer shrugged. "Making his escape from the base is one thing, but reporting to Ballinger is another. According to Ruy Alvarez, none of Ballinger's secret spaceports maintains radio contact with the outside world, Frank. They don't dare to; it could lead to their discovery. So if Gault reports to Ballinger, it will have to be in person."

"If he does report to Ballinger, what happens to our twelve volunteers? We can't just let them walk into a trap."

Captain Strayer shook his head and asked a question of his own. "What happens to Project Nobel if we don't go ahead with our plans?"

"We'd never get off the ground. If we did, the Monitors would shoot us out of space unless we used Ballinger's fleet for cover. But even if we did, unless we can gain control of his fleet what the 'Nobel' does won't matter."

"Then it looks like you've answered your own question, Frank."

"But we can't just. . . ."

"I've contacted Stavanger and Tromso and Oslo. Most of the ramjet personnel are ex-spacemen, don't forget. Harry Gault won't leave Norway if they can help it. If we're just given a couple of days, what he does after that won't matter."

Still, Frank was adamant. "Unless we know for sure that Gault's been stopped, can we let a dozen boys like Andy walk right into a trap?"

Before Captain Strayer could answer that question, Andy did. "We have to go ahead with it, Frank," he said. "Earth's whole future hangs on what we do. I don't have to tell you that. That's why you had me shadowing Gault. But he never stepped out of line . . . till now."

Frank sighed, and grumbled, and hoped for a miracle. But none of the returning 'copters reported any sign of Harry Gault.

Captain Strayer was right about most of the ramjet personnel at Norway's three big intercontinental airports; almost to a man they were ex-spacemen.

One of them, though, like Harry Gault himself, was an ex-smuggler who had lost his license before the Edict. His name was Daniel Shea. He had known Gault in the old days and had had his papers lifted at the same hearing that had written an end to Gault's legal career as a spaceman. Now Shea piloted a ramjet on the Tromso-Los Angeles over-the-pole run.

Harry Gault was aware of this. Even before leaving Mexico he knew he'd probably have to flee Norway as a fugitive. As soon as he left the "Nobel" and its great gantry behind him, he set out for Tromso.

About midway between Narvik to the south and Hammerfest to the north, Tromso was the only town of any size north of the Arctic Circle in Norway. Thanks to its location, it was an ideal spot for the Los Angeles-Norway transpolar run.

It was situated less than three hundred miles from Hammerfest and barely two hundred miles from the Project Nobel base, but those two hundred miles were the longest of Harry Gault's life. He would never forget the droning whine of the hovering jet-copters, the quick plunge into a copse of stunted evergreens, the wading of shallow but turbulent rivers, the icy fear he felt when, every now and then, he found himself exposed on the bare tundra with nowhere to hide.

He struck out due west from the base on foot, hoping to reach the coast. There, among the inlets and fjords that gave Norway one of the longest coastlines in the world, he knew he could board one of the coastal hovercraft that plied back and forth between Hammerfest and Tromso.

The idea was a good one, but it almost was his undoing. He reached the coastal hovercraft station in six hours, hungry, exhausted, the exposed skin of his hands and face swollen by countless mosquito bites. He watched the saucer-shaped hovercraft glide in. He began to walk out on the pier.

Then, at the far end of the pier, he recognized an ex-spaceman from Project Nobel. Not only were they seeking him in the air and on the ground, but they had covered the hovercraft, too.

Harry Gault turned around, forced himself to walk slowly, and left the pier.

Half an hour later, he was aboard a small fishing boat, a mile and a half downstream on the small fjord on which the hovercraft station was located. He had paid the owner to intercept the hovercraft for him in deep water.

When the saucer-shaped vessel appeared, skimming over the surface, they hailed it. Gault was taken aboard and paid his fare. He saw no familiar face and relaxed for the first time since leaving the base.

Less than twelve hours after leaving Project Nobel, he skimmed into Tromso harbor aboard the hovercraft. Three and a half hours for the ramjet journey to Los Angeles, less than an hour from Los Angeles to Mexico City, where a private 'copter could take him to the secret spaceport, he told himself, and he could still give Captain Ballinger the list of agents provocateur a full day before any of them arrived in Mexico or at any of the other bases.

He knew the airport at Tromso would be unsafe. He had to contact Daniel Shea directly, but he had to stay in hiding, too, for he knew the Nobel spacemen were searching for him. Waiting in a dark corner of the rotunda, he sent a porter to the ready-room to inquire about Shea.

The porter was back in a few minutes. "Not half an hour ago," he said, and as he spoke Harry Gault's optimism vanished, "Captain Shea took off in a ramjet."

"Bound for Los Angeles?" "Yes, that's right."

"Do you know how long he lays over there?"

The porter shook his head.

Harry Gault realized he was in for a long wait.

Ollie Olafson smiled fondly at his sister Freya and Frank Marlow who stood arm in arm near him.

"They will be packed in like sardines, yes?" He gestured at the small jet-copter on the field behind him. "But it was the biggest I could get, and I think we can squeeze in twelve for the flight to Stavanger."

Andy and the others climbed the stairs out of the operations bunker. They had been given a final briefing by Captain Strayer. Now he followed them to the waiting 'copter and said, "You all know that what we on the 'Nobel' can hope to achieve is in your hands. All our preparations will have been for nothing if you can't prevent Ballinger's bombing of the Star Brain. Perhaps all our preparations will have been for nothing if a Ballinger ship fires a single rocket at the fleet protecting Canopus. Because while the Monitor Satellites are not manned, the Confederacy ships at Canopus are. What happens on Earth and to Earthmen in the next hundred years or more will be determined by what you can do aboard Ballinger's ships. I only wish I were going with you."

"You know what I wish, sir?" one of the volunteers said with a shaky smile. "I wish we were sure Harry Gault hadn't left Norway." They all laughed

nervously.

"As far as we can tell," Frank said, "he hasn't." He left Freya's side and walked among the volunteers, shaking their hands. "But if he has, or if he manages somehow to get word to Ballinger, they'll be planning a hot reception for you. If that happens, I want the solemn promise of every one of you boys that you'll surrender without a fight. Reed Ballinger is ruthless, remember that. And you'd be completely at his mercy."

As they boarded the 'copter, Captain Strayer reminded them, "From Stavanger you'll each make ordinary ramjet connections with the Ballinger base you originally fled. The rest is up to you."

Andy was the last to board. He stared across the field at the "Nobel" and its gantry. Next time he saw the ship, he knew, it would be in deep space. If he ever saw it again.

"Almost forgot to tell you," Frank called at the last moment. "There's an ex-Cadet in Mexico who's been feeding valuable information to Ruy Alvarez. He'll be on your side from the very beginning. Name of Charlie Sands."

"I know Charlie," Andy said, surprised. "We served on Luna together."

The 'copter's rotors started with a roar. Frank had to shout to make himself heard. "Well, boy, the next time we get together will be on Canopus."

"Right," Andy said. "On Canopus." But he wondered whether he'd ever see his brother again.

Freya and Frank stood back. Frank waved his arm in a single brief parting salute.

"Fasten the door, please," Ollie Olafson called from the controls.

Andy was about to, but just then he saw a small figure rushing breathlessly across the field. It was the Austrian archaeologist, Dr. Seys.

"Marlow!" he shouted. "I see out of you again they wish to make a spaceman."

Andy nodded as, panting, Dr. Seys reached the jet-copter.

"I only wish to say that if ever it is your desire to become an archaeologist, I would consider it my good fortune to have you as a student in Vienna."

Andy thanked him.

"On the Acropolis you did a splendid job, my young friend. On your mission I wish you all good fortune."

Again Andy thanked him and shut the door. The Acropolis was a model of plaster, he thought, and he had been working under Dr. Seys's instructions. To do it he'd needed patience and a steady hand and an interest in his work. He'd had all three. There never had been any doubt about the outcome. The mission they were about to embark on couldn't be more different. When each of the volunteers arrived at his destination, he'd be all alone in a hostile camp. He'd have no instructions of a skilled expert to guide him. He'd need courage but prudence too.

As well as all the luck in the world.

Was it worth the risk? As the jet-copter rose, shuddering and whining, Andy knew that it was. No risk was too grave, no peril too great, if it gave Earthmen a chance in space again.

"You could have knocked me over with a hummingbird's feather," Daniel Shea said enthusiastically. "I came in the door and I just gave one squint and I told myself, If that isn't my old friend Harry Gault then I'm not Daniel Shea.' What brings you to Norway?"

"As a matter of fact," Gault said, "I want out."

"Of Norway, you mean?" said Shea. "Don't tell me you're in trouble again!"

"I'll tell you. I'm in trouble again. When do you fly back to North America?"

"Not until day after tomorrow. Give a guy a break, will you? I just returned from a round trip."

"The day after tomorrow will be too late for me," Gault said slowly. "What about tonight?"

"Impossible, old friend," Shea said. His enthusiasm had begun to cool.

"I could pay you."

"Impossible."

"Tomorrow?"

"How much could you pay me, old friend?"

Gault told him, and Daniel Shea whistled softly. "It must be pretty important to you. I think it can be arranged for tomorrow. I could switch runs with one of our other pilots."

"There's only one thing," Gault said. "I can't go through customs. You'll have to get me on and off the ramjet unseen. Can you do it?"

"Harry, Harry!" Shea laughed. "Up to your old tricks again, I see. What are you smuggling out of Norway?"

"Myself," Gault said simply.

"Are you serious? I didn't know you were contraband, old friend." "Can you do it?"

"How much did you say you'd pay?"

Gault told him again.

"Old friend," said Shea, "I can do it."

After he parted from his companions in Stavan-ger, Andy was shuttled in reverse along the underground railroad that had brought him to Norway. He flew by ramjet to New York, remembering the parting dinner in Stavanger. All twelve ex-Cadets vowed that the next time they met would be in deep space where, after all, they belonged. Andy's ramjet was the third to leave.

He flew from New York to Mexico City and contacted Captain Alvarez. There was nothing Alvarez could tell him, except what Frank had mentioned at

Project Nobel: Charlie Sands, at the Ballinger spaceport, would be an ally. As far as Alvarez knew, Harry Gault wasn't in Mexico.

Andy flew south to Merida, where he took the bus to the little Indian village near the spaceport. It was night when he got there, and after the Land of the Midnight Sun the darkness seemed strange.

Skirting the village, Andy struck out on the final leg of his return on foot. The sounds of the jungle were all around him.

His first surprise was the ease with which he followed the track through the jungle. It seemed to have been widened, and in the soft earth underfoot were the deep gouges of tire tracks.

When he had covered about half the distance to the secret spacefield, he heard the drone of a truck behind him. The drone became a roar that drowned the chirping and rasping of the insects.

Headlights impaled Andy. He turned directly in their path and raised his hands, waving them. The truck bore down on him and braked to a stop. Its engine idled noisily in the night.

"What are you doing out here?" a voice shouted.

"My name's Marlow," Andy shouted back. "I'm returning to camp."

"Returning from where?" Suddenly the curiosity in the voice became suspicion. "Did you say Marlow?"

"That's right."

Andy heard a door slam. A man's silhouette appeared in front of the headlights. When he came closer, Andy recognized Lieutenant Odet.

"Where in space have you been, Cadet?"

"It's a long story," Andy said, and waited wondering if the story Frank had prepared for him and the other volunteers would be accepted.

"Save it," Lieutenant Odet said at last, neither friendly nor unfriendly. "Climb in, Marlow. I think Captain Ballinger will want a word with you."

"That's just what I was thinking," Andy agreed, and climbed onto the canvas-covered truck bed with Lieutenant Odet. Seconds later, the truck began to move.

"Just tell me this much," Lieutenant Odet said. "Where did you go?"

"Norway," Andy said.

Chapter 13     *>space

"NORWAY," he said again to Captain Ballinger an hour later.

From the window of Ballinger's office he could see bright floodlights blazing all over the spacefield. Their launching pads elevated to ground level, spaceships and gantries stood ready. A steady stream of trucks flowed in from the Indian village, and there were shouts and the creaks of winches as supplies were raised on the gantries and loaded aboard the ships.

"What made you go there?" Captain Ballinger asked.

Though Reed Ballinger and his plans had dominated so much of Andy's thinking since his return from Luna Academy, this was only the second time he'd seen the renegade ex-Space Captain. Whatever else he was, Reed Ballinger was not a man you could forget. He was taller than Frank, broad-shouldered and powerfully built. The dark, intent eyes dominated his handsome face. Even discounting the uniform of a Senior Space Captain, which he was wearing, he had

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spaceman written all over him. And, if first impressions meant anything, he was more obviously a leader of men than Lambert Strayer. Andy wondered if an ex-Cadet who still hadn't seen his nineteenth birthday would be able to deceive a man like Reed Ballinger.

"There was a spaceman in Mexico City," Andy said, "named Ruy Alvarez. He sent me there."

"Why'd you go to Alvarez?"

"An Indian told me to."

Ballinger's eyes held his. "Why?"

"You mean why did he tell me to, or why did I leave in the first place?"

"Let's start with you."

"Well, it was after you made a speech here, Captain. I ... I guess I wasn't ready to accept the inevitability of a war in space. I wanted to find out if there was another way. So I left."

"And did you find out?" Ballinger asked. "Is there another way?"

"They think so in Norway."

"What do you think?"

"I'm back, Captain," Andy said. "I came back." "Tell me about Norway."

"Well," said Andy," the first thing you ought to know is that Captain Gault is there."

"Gault?" Ballinger said blandly. "He is?"

Andy let that pass. There was no doubt that Harry Gault had joined Project Nobel on Ballinger's instructions. But there was still doubt as to whether Gault had found a way to leave Norway. If he did, and if he reported that Andy tried to stop him or that Andy was one of a dozen volunteers who'd been sent back to the Ballinger bases by Lambert Strayer. . . . Andy felt his heart pounding. If that happened, they were lost.

"Yes, sir. I guess he had the same idea I had."

"But you don't have it any longer?"

"I came back," Andy said again. Then he began to tell Captain Ballinger about Project Nobel. He spoke admiringly of Lambert Strayer but disdainfully of the "Nobel's" peace plans, of the scores of scientists who had answered Strayer's call and put together in the bleak tundra country above the Arctic Circle a capsule history of humanity's achievements, of the naive hope that the Star Brain could be persuaded by a shipload of artifacts and ideas.

"That's what opened my eyes, Captain," he said. "While I was here the hope of a peaceful return to space kept growing on me. There had to be a way other than war, I kept thinking. At the Academy they always taught us. . . ."

"I know what they taught you at the Academy. I put in four years on Luna, too, Cadet."

"Anyway, Project Nobel convinced me that there wasn't any other way. Don't get the wrong idea, Captain. I was grateful for the chance to work with men like Dr. Seys and his colleagues, but. . . ."

"Intellectual piddlers," scoffed Ballinger.

". . . but now what we need is boldness, not brilliance; brawn, not brains. The 'Nobel' opened my eyes, Captain. That's why I came back here."

Andy was surprised at how easily the lies came to his lips. But as the words poured glibly forth, one thought alone filled his brain: he had to convince Captain Ballinger. No matter what, he had to blast off with the fleet. He could almost picture the same scene taking place at the other spacefields, with Ballinger lieutenants playing Ballinger's role.

"Then, after you made up your mind you just walked out of Project Nobel?"

"Not just me," Andy said. "There were I think a dozen of us. We ... I guess you'd call it mutinied. We all decided to return to our original bases. We had to, because there was talk of more ex-Cadets deserting you every day, Captain, and we wanted to come back with the real story of Project Nobel. They mean well, Captain. You've got to understand that. But what does Earth's history matter to the Star Brain? Every world has its own history, and I guess every world's people think themselves unique. But the Star Brain functions for the present and the future, not the past."

"Then you think your Dr. Seys and the others are fools?"

"No, sir," Andy said promptly, "I don't. I think they're very brave men. I just think they're mistaken. I told you I was proud of the chance to work for them, and that still goes. At any other time"—Andy shrugged—"I would have considered it an honor."

"But you think what we need now is incisive action and decisive leadership?"

Andy nodded, "That's about the size of it."

"And so you came back," Ballinger said softly. Then all at once his voice was hard. "Give me one reason why I should trust you."

"I can't make you trust me. All I want is a chance . . . with the fleet."

Captain Ballinger went to the window and gazed out at the floodlights and scurrying figures, the rumbling trucks and groaning winches. He said slowly:

"We've advanced our schedule a full thirty-six hours, Cadet. I'll be frank with you: we had to. We're painfully shorthanded. We've posted guards around the clock, but our bases are too big, and if men want to leave they can leave. We've averaged it out. Every six hours we delay means another desertion. Already we're operating at only three-quarter strength." Ballinger sighed. "We leave inside of three hours. From here, from the other bases, the entire fleet is blasting off simultaneously. In three hours we'll be back in space again."

Ballinger turned to the window again. His voice seemed far away as he went on, "Do you wonder why I bother to tell you this? If I accept you back in the fleet, that would be an act of monumental stupidity on my part, wouldn't it?"

Andy waited. Ballinger said finally: "But I'm going to. I've got to. We need every recruit we can get, Marlow. Even turncoats. Even, to

coin a word, re-turncoats. We're undermanned. But just so we understand each other, Marlow: I don't trust you. I won't trust you until you prove to me I can. I'm going to take you aboard the 'Goddard,' my flagship. You were in training as an astrogator, weren't you?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Then you'll be in the astrogation room, under Lieutenant Odet who, as you may have noticed," Ballinger said dryly, "has been doubling as a truckman." His voice and his mood changed without warning. "If you make one wrong move, you'll be put under arrest. Two, and you'll find yourself going out the disposal chute without a spacesuit. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," Andy said softly.

"Good. The quartermaster will issue you a fresh jumper. After that, return to your old barracks. We'll be assembling soon. That's all, Cadet. I'll see you aboard the 'Goddard' ... in deep space."

Andy came to attention, saluted smartly, executed an about-face, and left.

They'd blast off in three hours, Reed Ballinger had told him, not just here in Mexico, but from all the secret spacefields scattered over the face of the Earth. And, with just three hours to go, how many of the Project Nobel volunteers would fail to reach their destinations in time?

"Oh, no!" Turk cried. "It's a mirage. Tell me I'm seeing things."

Stocky, pugnacious, but trying to smile and glower at the same time, he led the friendly assault on Andy. The ex-Cadets clustered excitedly around him seconds after he'd come through the door. In discordant concert, they hurled questions at him.

Turk's voice was loudest. "Where did you blow in from? I know," he bellowed, pretending belligerence. "Here is one shrewd Cay-det. He waits off on the beach some place, like in Acapulco or Mazatlan, while we barely survive the training and spit-and-polish; he waits while we make like packmules to do the loading, and then he ups and walks in and says, quote: 'Men, take me to space.'" Turk snorted and made a wry face.

The others picked up his raillery, and Andy was grateful for it. He knew he couldn't reveal his mission until they were spacebound. Whatever happened, he had to be aboard the "Goddard." Only then would he try to discover which Cadets he could trust.

Now, waiting in the dorm, he encouraged the joking and used it himself to parry serious questions. He had been east of the sun and west of the moon, had returned on a flying carpet, was Reed Ballinger's secret weapon.

After a while, when it became apparent that Andy wasn't going to reveal anything he didn't want to reveal, Turk said, "It took us a while, but we get the message. Top-secret stuff, huh?"

"I didn't say that," Andy said.

"You don t say anything."

Andy shrugged, and then Turk was grinning at him and pounding him on the back and pumping his hand almost hard enough to dislocate his shoulder. "Okay, we wait," he said resignedly, but he was still grinning from ear to ear. "I don't care if you blew in from Ultima Thule, Andy. It's good to have you back."

Soon Andy was no longer the center of attention. The ex-Cadets returned to their bunks and sat on them, or stretched out stiffly, hands clasped behind their heads. A few of them paced in the narrow aisle. Their faces were drawn and tense. Andy didn't have to be told that they knew they'd be blasting off soon, in defiance of the Star Brain and the Monitor Satellites.

Charlie Sands came over to him. He was a thin, small Cadet with reddish-blond hair and freckles. "Come outside with me a minute, Andy?" he asked.

"Suits me."

They stood looking at the floodlit gantries. "Gets dark around here nights," Charlie Sands observed. Andy said nothing.

"Stays light all summer in Norway, doesn't it?"

"So I've heard," Andy said.

"So you've seen, firsthand."

"All right, so I've seen," Andy said.

"Captain Alvarez told me to expect someone. We've lost about fifteen Cadets since you were gone, but not all of them went to Norway. I was wondering who it would be. What do we do?"

"You've been in touch with Alvarez?" "Constantly. Few times a week." I see.

"Listen, Marlow. Maybe you see and maybe you don't. But just get this clear; you're not the only one who didn't want any part of an interstellar war. Stop playing it cagey with me, will you? Fifteen of you ran out on it, and that's one way and I have nothing against it. But me, I've been on and off the base maybe twenty times, risking my neck each time, and risking it again to return. I've just got back from contacting Alvarez about the new blast-off time. So will you stop acting as if you can't trust me?"

"I'm sorry," Andy said.

"Okay. What do we do?"

"We mutiny," Andy said, and then he told Charlie Sands what Captain Strayer and Frank had said in the operations bunker.

"Harry Gault's the biggest problem to start with," Andy explained after he'd outlined the mutiny plans. "If he shows up before blast-off. . . ."

"He doesn't have much time."

"I know, but if he does I'll be exposed. If that happens, I'd like to know you'd take over for me. He doesn't suspect you, does he?"

"Not that I know of."

"If we do get into space without Gault, the second problem is recruiting. Is there anybody you can trust, anybody you think is ready to come over to us?"

Charlie Sands frowned. "Most of them took off, like you did. I can think of a few, your friend Ayoub, for one. He needs a little gentle prodding, I'd say, but well be able to rely on him. We could. . . .**

The public address amplifier on the outer wall of the dorm squawked and interrupted him. Andy recognized Captain Ballinger's voice:

"Attention, spacemen! Attention! Spacemen, board your ships. Board your ships and prepare for blastoff!"

Andy barely had time to learn that both Charlie Sands and Turk would be aboard the "Goddard," the largest ship in the fleet, when the dorm door opened and two score Cadets burst out of it and sprinted across the tarmac toward their waiting ships.

The next few moments were ones Andy had thought he'd never experience again. In the glare of floodlights he climbed the gantry steps behind Charlie Sands and heard once more the clanging tramp of spaceboots on metal. He boarded the "Goddard" from the gantry catwalk and was aware of that instant of disorientation which a spaceman never loses; what were now the starboard walls of the "Goddard" would, after blast-off, become the decks of the various compartments; what were the port walls, the ceilings. The pre-blast-off decks and ceilings would become the starboard and port bulkheads or walls.

With the other ex-Cadets, Andy hurried aloft, scaling the grapple-ladders which would be removed after blast-off. The acceleration hammocks were temporary, too, to help cushion the enormous pressure of nine gravities. In the big hammock room, which would become dining deck after blast-off and burnout, Lieutenant Odet was checking Cadets off on a clipboard and assigning them to hammocks.

"Marlow," Andy said when he reached the Lieutenant.

"You're not listed," Odet informed him. "Captain Ballinger assigned me to the 'Goddard,' sir.

Lieutenant Odet scrawled his name at the bottom of the last sheet on the clipboard and assigned Andy a spare hammock. He strapped in and listened to the other Cadets calling their names, watched them strapping in, saw the look of expectancy and awe on all their faces.

Only moments were left now, Andy thought, excitement mounting in him. He heard the last ring of boots on the ladders, heard the metallic sound of bulkhead doors slamming, saw Lieutenant Odet approaching an empty hammock. In scant seconds, the firing crew in the operations bunker would send the "Goddard" and the other ships of the fleet hurtling into space.

But first Andy heard boots ringing again, and Lieutenant Odet went back to his clipboard. Strapped in, Andy craned his neck to see the latecomer. All at once he felt a pulse beating in his throat.

The man was Harry Gault.

"We didn't think you'd make it," Lieutenant Odet said.

"I'm here, Lieutenant. I'm here." Gault was grinning.

He moved among the hammocks. His eyes caught and held Andy's. "I see we both made it," he said softly, and then went to his assigned hammock. Across the room Charlie Sands was staring at Andy.

All Andy could do was wait. If Gault wanted to stop him, wanted to betray him and his mission before blast-off, he had to act within the next few seconds. Instead, he was busy with the buckles of his straps. He grinned again, this time straight at Andy.

"Spacemen, check your hammocks," blared the amplifier.

Mechanically, Andy checked out his straps and buckles. The sight of Gault had sent him plummeting from preblast-off exhilaration to despair. Why Gault was playing a waiting game, though, he didn't know.

Except for the occasional creak of a leather strap, there was no sound in the hammock room.

The amplifier blared:

"Blast-off minus fifteen. . . . fourteen. . . . thirteen. . . . twelve. . . . eleven. . . . ten. . . ."

Seconds after blast-off, they would reach escape velocity and the first-stage rocket would burn out. Seconds after that, they would be within range of the Monitor Satellites. Perhaps, thought Andy, Gault was waiting to denounce him until after the battle was won.

. . five. . . . four. . . . three. . . . two. . . . one. . . . OFF!"

There was a whine, and then a whining roar, and then a screaming banshee howl through the thin skin of the "Goddard." Andy felt a huge unseen hand thrust him back and down against the acceleration hammock, felt the fingers contorting the skin and flesh of his face, felt the tremendous pressure against his ribs and arms and legs. . . .

The "Goddard," along with all the ships of Reed Ballinger's fleet, rising from their pads at all the secret bases, was spacebound.

Chapter 14 8°»fe spaCe

"SPACEMEN, man your battle stations!*'

They were in space, and weightless in free fall. Andy unstrapped the buckles and removed the hammock straps. The brutal pressure of acceleration had vanished, as had the screech of the thinning upper atmosphere rushing past the hull of the "Goddard."

As an astrogator, Andy's real job wouldn't begin until they were ready to plot a subspace orbit for the "Goddard." Destination: Canopus and the Star Brain, hundreds of light years across the Galaxy. On a normal ship of the line, Andy knew, an astrogator would have been supercargo, checking out the crates of supplies in the hold, ascertaining what damage blast-off had done, repairing it, making himself generally useful until his unique training as an astrogator was needed.

But the "Goddard" was preparing for battle.

Weightless, Andy floated up from his hammock. He turned lazily against what was now the ceiling of the hammock room, though up, down, and sideways

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were meaningless terms of orientation in a spaceship in free fall.

"First priority," blared Ballinger's voice, "gunners. Gunners, man your rockets."

Andy saw Turk and a dozen other Cadets swim through air toward the hatches.

"Second priority, rocketeers."

Another eight Cadets swam from the hammock room. As rocketeers, Andy knew, they would man the small auxiliary rockets used to correct the "Goddard's" orbit in normal space. In battle, they would pit their skill against enemy missiles, their fingers darting over the keys of the firing boards, constantly altering the "Goddard's" course, making it a difficult target.

"Third priority, radar technicians."

The radar technicians floated to their waiting screens, where the flashing green pips would herald the arrival of the rest of the fleet . . . and of the Monitor Satellites.

"Fourth priority, astrogators. Astrogators, man the viewscopes."

Instinctively, Andy found himself obeying the command. The viewscopes, he knew, were refracting telescopes mounted flush with the hull of the "Goddard." Their lenses would be adjusted automatically for distance and direction by the radar screens; so it would be Andy's job, as an astrogator, to follow the course of the battle in space, to announce when a hit had been made, when a Satellite had been destroyed, when— to confirm the radar findings—a missile was launched at the "Goddard."

Andy saw Lieutenant Odet ahead of him. "Have I been assigned a scope?" he called.

"We can use a man starboard. Follow me."

Andy swam after Lieutenant Odet, wondering how long it would take the Monitor Satellites to respond to the infrared warning device that would send them homing in on the ships of Reed Ballinger's illegal fleet.

All at once, on the viewscope, what had been blurry dots swam into focus. Andy counted twenty of them, twenty projectile shapes hurtling toward the "Goddard."

"Do they reflect sunlight?" Lieutenant Odet asked behind him, after Andy announced the approaching fleet.

"No, sir. They're dark."

Lieutenant Odet was correlating viewscope data and radioing it to the gunnery rooms. Andy could picture Turk and the other gunners waiting tensely at their firing controls. Triumphantly, Lieutenant Odet said, "Then they're our drones. They're overage ships and crewless. They're fueled with too much liquid oxygen so their exhaust is hotter than ours. They ought to attract the satellites like a magnet attracts iron filings. They're expendable, and while they're being shot out of space by the Satellites we'll go to work."

The image changed again as the radar technicians, unseen, altered direction and focal length of Andy's scope. Andy saw another fleet, fifty projectile shapes at least, silver in the sunlight and against the velvety black of space.

"Fifty ships," Andy reported. "Silver." He looked again and saw behind them, blurred and not quite in focus, the green-gray globe of Earth a hundred thousand miles away. "Coming from Earth's day side."

"Our Asian contingents," Lieutenant Odet said. "We had three bases in Asia."

After the Asian, the South American and Oceanic contingents appeared. And behind the thirty-odd ships from Oceania, Andy saw hundreds of midge-like silver motes in pursuit.

"The Monitors," Lieutenant Odet said nervously, and the information was relayed to gunnery.

Now that the battle was about to be joined, Andy wondered if he would remain at the scope to see its outcome. A few words from Harry Gault, he realized, and he would be revealed as an agent provocateur.

In the first stage of the battle, the crew of the "Goddard" were no more than spectators.

Andy saw the Monitor Satellites fan out in long columns as they neared the drone fleet. The columns formed a net to ensnare the drones, and one by one, as atomic-warhead missiles homed in on them, the dark ships disappeared in brilliant flashes of light and en-

Crgy'

Suddenly there was a lurch as the "Goddard," cruising at two hundred miles a second in free fall, changed direction. In his scope, Andy saw the fifty ships of the Asian fleet wheel sunward in a long double column. Motes that were Satellites and black projectiles that were drone ships went out of focus and then grew larger, silhouetted against the glare of the sun.

Reed Ballinger's Mexican fleet was now swiftly approaching the automated battle with the "Goddard" as vanguard.

The next half-hour was one Andy would never forget. The ships swam ever closer, and soon the Satellites became gray globes worrying the bigger ships of the drone fleet like a swarm of bees. As their position and distance changed, the scope kept going in and out of focus.

Captain Ballingers voice blared: "Gunners, fire at will!"

Salvo after salvo of rockets streaked away from the "Goddard," each carrying its lethal atomic nose cone, each orbited and triggered to meet a Satellite in collision course. As each salvo left, the "Goddard" rocked and swayed in reaction. Andy had to strap himself to a stanchion near the viewscope.

First one Satellite and then another . . . and then scores . . . disappeared in a burst of raw energy. The Monitors broke their net-like formation about the drone ships.

"Monitors heading this way!" Andy heard one of the other astrogators shout, and the image on his own scope changed so that he could see them, too.

At least a hundred Satellites streaked toward the "Goddard" and the other ships of the Mexican fleet. They were spectators no longer.

"Two o'clock forward!" Andy would cry, and Lieutenant Odet would relay the message to gunnery and the Satellite homing in on the "Goddard" would be blown from space.

"Three o'clock forward. They've fired a salvo."

And the "Goddard" would shudder as its direction was changed, and changed again.

The sweat poured off Andy's face. His eyes could barely follow the rapid sequence of images on the viewscope. He saw more Monitors blown from space; saw a collision between a Monitor and the ship next in line behind the "Goddard"; saw three ships of the Mexican fleet blown apart by the Monitors' missiles; saw clear space and then the last of the drones enter the scope at six o'clock and the Monitors enter at seven in interception-course, saw the dark drones blasted asunder.

His voice became hoarse, his ribs ached because the full weight of his body under three or more G's pulled against the stanchion strap every time the "Goddard" altered course. If they were hit, he knew, there might be a micro-second in which to register disaster, a micro-second and no more. It seemed as if he had been glued forever to his station at the viewscope. His mouth was dry. He found it hard to swallow.

". . . Satellites," he heard after a long time, and again, clearer, "No more Satellites."

He watched the scope images changing. Drones and Satellites alike had been swept from space, but the Ballinger fleets were in ragged formation.

The command went out: "Fleet Captains, report your losses."

The grim news trickled back. Oceania, six ships; Asia, twenty-three; Mexico, eleven; Africa. . . .

Reed Ballinger himself made the announcement. "Men," and his voice was husky with emotion, "we've won. We're in space again, where we belong. To get here, our brave companions on fifty-eight ships perished. But they did not die in vain, for the way to Canopus and the Star Brain is now open. And our remaining ships are more than enough to blast the Brain's guardians out of space when we get there."

Andy had a terrible sense of loss. Fifty-eight ships, with how many men aboard each? Dying so that Reed Ballinger could return to space against the law. . . .

Abruptly, Andy was thinking of the "Nobel." Had it managed to get past the Monitors, too? Or, weaponless, had it been destroyed in battle?

". . . Ballinger deceived us," Lieutenant Odet was saying bitterly. "The 'Goddard' was a first-rate ship, fast and armed to the teeth. Maybe we had fifty like it, and they're among the survivors. But in the last few days, ships as overage as the drones began to join the fleets assembling at the spacefields. We needed them, Ballinger said." He added bleakly, "We needed them just as we needed the drones, as decoys. They added to the size of our fleet, sure; but Ballinger sacrificed their crews so the rest of us could get through."

"Didn't he tell you he. . . ."

Lieutenant Odet cut Andy off, "I guess he did what he had to do. That's all. I talk too much."

Andy unstrapped himself from the stanchion. His fingers were trembling with reaction. When he started to turn, he saw Harry Gault and two Cadets behind him.

Gault said, not wasting words, "You're under arrest, Marlow."

Andy didn't have to ask why. Nor did he have to ask why Gault had waited until the battle was won. They'd needed every man they could get to fight it.

The two Cadets took Andy's arms. They wouldn't meet his eyes. One of them looked as if he were about to speak and then changed his mind.

They led Andy away from the viewscope.

Even if the "Nobel" had managed to get through, there was nothing he could do now to help Captain Strayer and Frank.

Chapter 15

EVEN THOUGH he was locked in a small storeroom with no windows and a single faint fluoro-tube burning in the ceiling, Andy knew the exact moment when the "Goddard," apparently beyond Luna's orbit, cut in its subspace drive and went shimmering into subspace.

Shimmering was the only word for it, though this time Andy didn't see the effect which, looking out aboard the "Goddard," would have been to see the stars of space blurred and even near-by Luna, the Earth, and the Sun would have gone out of focus, until suddenly all would be gone, along with the deep black of space, to be replaced by the murky shifting gray-ness of subspace.

As a Cadet on Luna, Andy, squinting into a small Academy viewscope, had more than once watched an outbound interstellar ship suddenly shimmer and become insubstantial, like a double exposure on a photographic plate or a slow dissolve on a motion picture film, until it was gone.

Like so many of the world's greatest scientific dis-

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coveries, starting with magnetism and electricity, subspace drive still was not understood clearly. This much was known: in order to bridge the unthinkable abysses between the stars, even the speed of laggard light was too slow, for though light traveled at 186,000 miles per second, it still took 4.3 years to reach Earth from Alpha Centauri, the nearest star; and the distance to stars like Deneb, Antares, and Canopus was measured in hundreds of light years.

Some theorists claimed the subspace drive employed the distance-spanning attributes of time without recourse to the one attribute which would have made interstellar travel impossible: duration. Others claimed that subspace was a completely separate and alien space-time continuum, where the natural laws of time, space, and motion did not apply as we understood them. Still others avoided any ultimate explanations of what they claimed was essentially inexplicable and merely said that the atoms of a spaceship, and everything aboard it, that entered subspace were speeded up in their inter- and intra-atomic relations.

All agreed that, by analogy, to travel through sub-space was like avoiding the linear distance between two points on opposite ends of a sheet of paper by the process of folding the paper exactly in half and thus placing the points adjacent to each other. The analogy further said that if a sheet of paper can be considered a two-dimensional space-time continuum and the real world a three-dimensional space-time continuum, then subspace could be considered a continuum of four dimensions. Just as the third dimension of thickness was used to bridge the distance between two points on opposite ends of a sheet of paper by folding it, so the unknown fourth dimension of the subspace continuum was used to bridge the infinitely vaster distance between the stars.

Most important, Andy knew, was the fact that sub-space worked. You entered it at a point in normal space, traveled incredible distances in an elapsed time of just a few days, and emerged hundreds of light years away.

In this case, destination, Canopus.

Where the Star Brain would be bombed a second time, this time thoroughly.

After the transit into subspace, Charlie Sands, off duty until the next watch, gathered a group of his ex-Luna classmates in his cabin; Charlie had been the Cadet Captain of his class. The only comparative stranger among them was Turk, whom Charlie Sands had included in the council of war because he knew Turk and Andy were friends.

"Men," Charlie Sands began, "you all know that Andy Marlow joined the crew of the 'Goddard' at the last minute. What you don't know is that he came here on direct orders from the commanders of Project Nobel."

"What's Project Nobel?" someone asked. Charlie Sands explained. He finished, "So you see, I've been in contact, through Ruy Alvarez, with the

Project Nobel people all along. But Andy's been working with them on the inside. He was sent here to do a job, and it's got to be done. Both Captain Ballinger and Captain Strayer, who commands Project Nobel, want Earthmen to return to space. The only difference is, Ballinger wants war and Strayer wants peace." Char he Sands took a deep breath and looked at each of his friends in turn. "If Andy Marlow remains a prisoner, Captain Ballinger will get his way. If we free Andy Marlow, there's a chance Captain Strayer will get his way."

Someone demanded, "You really think the Star Brain will pay any attention to a history of Earth? Do you tlunk it would even give Captain Strayer a chance to present his history?"

"Captain Strayer thinks so. And you already saw a sample of what we can expect if Ballinger gets his way—his way being war from here to Canopus and back."

"But what can Marlow do, even if we set him free?" someone else asked.

"There's only one way to find out, by freeing him," Charlie Sands said. "Are you with me?"

One after another, the ex-Cadets agreed to follow wherever Charlie Sands led. All of them had just witnessed the first space battle since the advent of the Galactic Confederacy; companions of theirs, boys they had lived with and studied with and played with on Luna, had died. If Marlow knew another way out, they said, they were all for it.

Only Turk held back. He was scowling, and his broad shoulders were slumped. "Look," he said slowly, choosing his words with an effort because the ideas they represented came hard, "now that we're back in space, do you want to stay or be exiled to Earth again?"

"Of course we want to stay," Charlie Sands said. "We belong in space. We're spacemen."

"Captain Ballinger led us this far," Turk pointed out. "This is probably the hardest speech I ever made in my life. Andy's my friend. My best friend, I guess, and I'd do just about anything for him. But that's just it; he's my friend, and I know him better than any of the rest of you do. What I'm trying to say, Andy Mar-low's, well, a dreamer. He's an idealist. In theory maybe he has the best ideas in the world; when we first entered the Academy together, they said he was the smartest kid in the class. They made him class Captain right away, and. . . ."

"Just like they made Charlie," one of the ex-Cadets said. "And Charlie doesn't look like a dreamer to you, does he?"

"That's what I'm getting at. Andy was only class Captain about three months. Any Cadet would have given his eyeteeth for the honor, and Andy resigned it during the first semester. You know what he said? He said he didn't come to Luna to wear a fancy uniform and lead his classmates on parade. He said he came to Luna to be a spaceman, and that was a full-time job. But half the time that meant, for Andy, sort of daydreaming and staring off into space and wondering what the other races of the Galaxy were like."

"I don't see anything wrong with that," Charlie Sands said, a little coldly.

"It depends on what you have to do," Turk insisted. "Andy was studying to be an astrogator, but right before they shut down the Academy he was thinking of switching to the School of Interstellar Sociology." Turk looked more and more uncomfortable. His face was red now, and as he spoke he averted his eyes. "Not that I have anything against that kind of stuff. But this is the point: we don't need a sociologist now or a bunch of historians like you say they have in Norway. We need a leader of men. We need the toughest leader of men we can get. We need what we have . . . Reed Ballinger."

"Then you won't help us?" Charlie Sands asked.

"No. I'm sorry. Andy's my best friend, and I wish I could. But I can't. I'm sorry," Turk said again.

"That puts us in a nice bind," Charlie said. "You know what we're planning to do."

"I wouldn't lift a finger to stop you. I'll just keep out of it," Turk said disconsolately. "I just wish I could make you change your minds." Turk shook his head slowly. "No, I'm not even sure of that. I don't know. I plain don't know what to think. Don't get the idea I like war any more than the rest of you. But maybe Captain Ballinger is right; maybe war is the only way."

"We're exiles from earth," Charles Sands pointed out. "If Ballinger has his way and bombs the Star Brain a second time, there isn't a world that would let us land."

For a long time Turk did not answer. "Go on," he said finally, "do what you have to do. I'll keep out of it. I just wish I knew what we should do. But I don't know. That's the whole thing. I don't know."

"I didn't know," Harry Gault said at precisely the same moment, "that Marlow wasn't the only turncoat aboard the 'Goddard.'"

Captain Ballinger said, "You heard it yourself."

"I know, but Sands wasn't in Norway. I'm sure of it."

"Of course he wasn't," Reed Ballinger said. "He never left Mexico until we blasted off. But he left the spacefield a dozen times and more, and at least three or four times I had him followed. Alvarez used to fly down from Mexico City to visit him in the Indian village. Even though he never went to Norway, Sands was a Project Nobel man from the beginning, and, as you just now heard, still is."

"So that's why you had a pickup unit planted in his cabin."

"That's why." Ballinger gazed at the small TV screen on the wall. "Listen."

"What we've got to do," the tiny image of Charlie Sands was saying on the TV screen, "is get Andy free.

And just as you men are willing to follow me, you'll have to be willing to follow Andy as soon as we get him out of there."

"But what's he going to do, if he gets out?" one of the Cadets asked.

"First, take over the 'Goddard,' by force if he has to. Then. ..."

"We could do that ourselves if he could."

"It's the next part that's important. Andy'll have to contact the 'Nobel.' He'll know how to do that. I don't."

Harry Gault smirked. "Take over the 'Goddard,'" he said, sarcastically. "That's a good one. That's rich, it is."

"Shut up and listen to what they're saying," Captain Ballinger ordered. "Don't you have eyes? Don't you have ears? After what happened with the Monitors, there isn't a man aboard who hasn't toyed with the idea of mutinying. I couldn't help it. We had to get through, even if it meant losing fifty ships and their crews. Listen."

". . . where they took him," Charlie Sands was saying. "Our best chance ought to come when the watch is changed."

The tiny image of Turk on the TV screen said, "I'm getting out of here. The less I know about your plans, the better it will be for all of us."

Some of the Cadets looked at him challengingly. Two of them moved between him and the door of the cabin.

"Hold your rockets," Charlie Sands ordered. "Turk's been frank with us. I think we can trust him." To Turk he said, "Go on, get out of here."

Turk left the screen. "I think you could be making a mistake, Charlie," one of the Cadets said.

"We ought to be able to free Andy without Turk's help. But eventually we're going to need the help of every man we can get. I don't want to make an enemy of Ayoub. Now, when the watch changes. . . ."

"When the watch changes," Captain Ballinger told Harry Gault, "you and a dozen picked men will be waiting for them, armed to the teeth."

What Turk needed, more than anything, was a confidant. He'd never felt so confused and undecided in his life. Maybe, he kept on thinking, Charlie Sands was right. Maybe Andy had been right in leaving the secret spacefield in the first place. And maybe, if Turk had gone with him that night to Norway, things would have been different. Then maybe Turk would understand what Andy understood and believe what he believed.

Maybe. He didn't know.

He found Lieutenant Odet on the gunnery deck, where the young officer was supervising the loading of new atomic warheads in the rocket tubes.

"They took Andy prisoner," Turk said.

"Don't you see I'm busy?" Lieutenant Odet snapped at him.

Turk, his broad shoulders slumped still further, was about to trudge away.

"Wait a minute, Ayoub. I'm sorry for blasting at you like that. My rating's in astrogation, with a subrating in gunnery, and they have me doing this."

"This whole business isn't our fault, is it, sir?" Turk asked.

Lieutenant Odet gave him a searching glance. "Who am I to say? I'm a spaceman. I've been trained to do what I'm told, and Captain Ballinger gives the orders aboard the 'Goddard.'"

"I guess so. I guess he does. But. . . ."

"Something's on your mind, isn't it?"

"I don't know. . . . I. . . ."

"Come on, boy. Out with it."

"Well," Turk stammered, "I . . . uh . . . that is . . . you've got to promise to keep it under a tarp no matter what you think."

"You won't get any commotion out of me," Lieutenant Odet promised, and Turk, talking compulsively, began to pour out the whole story.

There was a dumb-waiter chute in the storeroom where Andy was locked up, and the green light over the sliding door of the chute had just glowed for the third time. Each time he had found a tray of food and drink waiting for him. If he hadn't been so concerned about being a prisoner, he might have read something encouraging into this gesture. With the "Goddard" streaking through space, passing light years like mileposts, Captain Ballinger probably had lost part of his hold on the crew. He could blame the battle with the Monitors for that, Andy knew, and the terrible losses Ballinger's combined fleet had sustained. As a result Andy was being fed mechanically because Reed Ballinger didn't want any of the crew contaminated by his ideas or what he could tell them about Project Nobel.

Ballinger was afraid of what might happen otherwise.

The conjecture was disheartening. If he were free, perhaps Andy could take over the "Goddard." But he wasn't free, and at the moment he didn't even know if the "Nobel" had come through the battle with the Monitors unscathed or if it had been blasted out of space.

As a prisoner he could do nothing, not even find out.

Free, if Ballinger had lost some part of his control over the ex-Space Captains and Cadets who served under him, Andy might have been able to take over the "Goddard" and try to contact the "Nobel."

But he wasn't free.

After he had eaten for the third time and replaced the tray in the dumb-waiter, Andy heard a disturbance in the corridor outside. There were shouts, and something heavy thudded against the bulkhead, then more shouts; then, astounded, Andy saw the door irising open.

Led by Charlie Sands, five Cadets stumbled into the small room. Behind them, as the door began to shut again, Andy caught a glimpse of Harry Gault's face.

Then they were all locked in together. "We could have done it," one of the Cadets said bitterly.

"We were going to free you," said another. "Charlie explained about Project Nobel," a third said.

Charlie Sands was panting. A large bluish bruise discolored his right temple and cheek. "We were betrayed," he told Andy. "W^7e wanted to help you, Mar-low. But they were waiting for us when we got here."

"We were betrayed," one of the Cadets said, "by your own best friend."

"What are you talking about?" Andy demanded.

"Turk Ayoub. He heard our plans," Charlie explained. "He said he didn't want any part of them, but he promised to keep his mouth shout. He didn't. He must have run straight to Ballinger."

Chapter 16 Mutiny!

RADIO MESSAGES can be sent through subspace. In fact, if they couldn't be, radio communication between interstellar planets would be impossible, for in normal space radio travels at the speed of light, far too slow to span the gap between the stars as a means of rapid communication.

But, though it can be sent through subspace, radio cannot be received in subspace. Thus, communication between ships traveling in subspace was impossible. This fact bothered Reed Ballinger.

"Twelve of them," he was telling Harry Gault. "You said twelve Project Nobel Cadets joined the fleet before blast-off, and we have no way of telling what happened on any ship except the 'Goddard.'"

Gault shrugged. "We'll have to wait and find out when we reach Canopus, Captain. But what are you worrying about? If we took care of Marlow so easily, what makes you think the other turncoats had a better time of it?"

"Because you're here," Ballinger pointed out. "Be-

171

cause you warned me against Marlow. Nobody warned the other ships. Nobody warned the rest of the fleet."

"They swore an oath to take their orders from Reed Ballinger, didn't they?"

"That was before the battle with the Monitors. If the reaction to the battle aboard the 'Goddard' is any sample, a determined nucleus of turncoats on any other ship might succeed. You saw what happened with Cadet Sands. If we hadn't planted a scanner in his cabin, you and I might be the ones locked up now."

Harry Gault couldn't debate the logic of that. But he pointed out, "It's almost twenty-four hours since Sands's mutiny. There hasn't been a peep out of anyone else. You've got a loyal crew, Captain."

"I wonder," Ballinger said. Then his moment of in-decisiveness was gone. "In a little over ten hours we're due to clear back into normal space in the orbit of Canopus' one planet."

"The Star Brain's planet, sir?"

"Right.The Star Brain's planet. As soon as we clear, I want every ship in the fleet contacted. If there's been a successful mutiny on any one of them, there's only one thing we can do, and it must be done decisively."

"Blast them out of space?" Gault offered.

"Correct. Blast them out of space."

During the transit through sub space, the rest of the universe ceases to exist for the crew of a star-bound ship. There are no stars to see, no patterns of constellations either familiar or unfamiliar, no radio contact either with a planet or another ship in transit. There is not even the remote possibility of a collision, for the physical law of normal space which says that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time no longer applies. Scientists could explain that only by analogy, but they had proof on several occasions that an orbit had been plotted and executed for a ship in transit right through what would have been the normal space location of a star.

The analogy they used was this. Normal space is to subspace as a flat world of two dimensions is to the normal world of three. On a flat world of length and breadth but no height, two objects could not occupy the same point at the same time. But if one of them were lifted in the third dimension, that of height, but was otherwise at precisely the same point in terms of the two dimensions of the flat world, then from the viewpoint of any flat-worlders the physical law would seem to be violated. Similarly, if two objects occupied what would have been the identical space at the identical time in normal space, but if one of them were lifted into the fourth dimension of the subspace continuum, the physical law would seem to be violated if you were oriented to the three dimensions of normal space.

The result of all this was that no isolation was more complete than the isolation of subspace. Physical laws that gave the normal world familiarity were violated; communication with the normal world was impossible; the only thing you could see outside the ship in transit itself was the gray, featureless murk of subspace.

Lieutenant Odet was explaining all this patiently to Turk. "So you see," he concluded, "we're all alone here. We're as alone as men can be."

"I know all that," Turk said. "We had a course in subspace orientation on Luna."

"True, but you didn't know that someday you'd have to make a decision in subspace that might determine whether the Galaxy went to war or entered a new era of mutual understanding."

"Are you trying to tell me you want to help Andy?" Turk gasped.

"You guessed it, Cadet. I've been a fool to believe in Reed Ballinger this long. He's not interested in Earth's returning to space . . . unless it returns with Captain Reed Ballinger leading the way."

"And you actually think that stuff Andy told me and Charlie Sands about Project Nobel can. . . ."

"It gives us a chance, Turk. Not just us. Not just Earthmen. Don't you see? Whether the Star Brain accepts a record of Earth's greatest achievements as a reason to give Earth a second chance in space is one thing and it's mighty important. But it can lead to something even more important. Do you know anything of the history of the Denebians?"

"The Denebians? No, I don't," Turk said, puzzled.

"Or the Antareans?The Formalhautians? The Siri-ans? The Centaurians?"

"No, but. . . ."

"Well, they don't know anything about us either.

We've had interstellar contact for the purposes of trade, but if one single worth-while idea has been exchanged among the Galactic races, I'm not aware of it. Do you think, if the Star Brain accepts Earth's record, the other races will just stand by and watch? You can bet your life they won't. They'd all want to get into the act, Turk. To get back on even cultural terms with Earth, they'll all prepare their own histories. First for the Star Brain, then for each other."

"Aren't you forgetting something, sir? There was a pooling of ideas to build the Star Brain."

"Sure there was. But can you tell me its purpose?"

"To keep the peace," Turk said promptly.

"Right, to keep the peace. Instead of trying to understand each other, the intelligent races of a hundred star-worlds and more got together and built the most complex electronic brain ever devised on any world, as a kind of glorified mechanical watchman to slap the hand of any race incautious enough to be caught in the cookie jar. But that's the whole point I'm trying to make. Peace by arbitration of a mechanical brain, of an electronic thinking machine, is one thing. Peace through mutual understanding is another. We've all depended on the Star Brain too much, and because we have, humans have become a little less human, Centaurians a little less . . . well, whatever word passes for human in their language, and so on. As a result, a ruthless man like Captain Ballinger is on his way to bomb the Star Brain. And if that happens, if there's no understanding among the interstellar civilizations to take the place of the glorified gadget that's kept them from each other's throats. . . ."

"Once you were loyal to Captain Ballinger. Now you want to help Andy? Why?"

"I've got to. When we fought the Monitors I saw Reed Ballinger's way. I don't want any part of it. I like to think, from what you've told me and from some talks I had with Charlie Sands in Mexico, I like to think that Captain Strayer's way is better. Helping Andy will be helping Strayer and his Project Nobel."

"What are you going to do?"

"What are you going to do?"

Turk didn't answer right away. Then he said slowly, "Andy was my best friend. He still is. I ... I let him down once, when Charlie Sands tried to free him. Maybe if I hadn't. . . ."

"If you hadn't, you'd be imprisoned with the rest of them right now."

Turk said, "I'm just a Cadet. A guy my age hates to admit it, but I'm still . . . uh, wet behind the ears. Maybe if there was somebody around like you when Charlie Sands first made his proposition, somebody who could explain things because subspace and interstellar worlds aren't a novelty to him. . . ."

"You'll join me?"

"I'm for freeing them. Yes, sir."

They were off duty in Lieutenant Odet's cabin. Turk headed for the door.

"Keep your jumper on," Lieutenant Odet said, and smiled. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Why, to get Andy free. I told you."

"Fine. But how would you like to succeed?"

Turk returned shamefacedly to his seat. "Sorry, Lieutenant. You do the planning; I'll do the listen-

"When a ship's in normal space," Lieutenant Odet said, "there's plenty for everyone to do. But once it changes over into sub-space on a predetermined orbit, you've got an entire crew mostly sitting on its hands. Or, in this case, edgy and more than eager to obey any orders Captain Ballinger gives on the care and feeding of would-be mutineers. The situation alters again when you change over back into normal space. Then we're all technicians again. Then Ballinger will hardly have a man to spare to put down a mutiny."

"You mean we wait. . . ."

"We wait until change-over, Turk. And then. . . ." Lieutenant Odet outlined his plan. Turk clung to every word, grimly determined to do his part this time.

A gunnery Cadet named Peters was in the weapons room when Turk got there. "How's the boy, Petey?"

"Raring to go. We're due to change over in about twenty minutes, aren't we, Turk?" "Right. That's why I'm here. Got a message for you from Lieutenant Odet. He wants to see you in starboard gunnery right away."

Cadet Peters stood up and stretched. His hands were grease-stained. He'd spent all his duty-hours in subspace servicing the "Goddard's" hand weapons. "Boy, the way they made me work," he told Turk, "you'd think there was going to be a mutiny or something. Look at them. They really shine, don't they?"

The racks of atomic rifles and atomic pistols were indeed gleaming. "They sure do," said Turk, trying to hide his impatience. "Lieutenant Odet wants you up there before change-over, Petey."

"But I was given orders to watch the gunnery room."

"Why do you think he didn't send for you on the intercom? That's why I'm here, to keep watch. Now get going."

Cadet Peters gave Turk a mock salute. "Aye, aye, sir. I didn't realize I was talking to the captain of the whole space navy."

After that, Cadet Peters left.

It took Turk less than ten minutes to do what he had to do. Under his jumper he was carrying a plastic bag, Stenciled on it was the name of the manufacturer and in smaller letters the contents of the bag. It had contained enough food concentrates, according to the lettering, to feed a dozen men for a week. Turk now quickly stuffed it with half a dozen atomic pistols. He tucked another two in his belt, one for himself and one for Lieutenant Odet.

Then he took the remaining atomic pistols and atomic rifles down from their racks and piled them near the hatch of the disposal- and escape-chute, smiling all the while because as he executed his end of it he began to like Lieutenant Odet's plan better and better. Lieutenant Odet had known, of course, that there would be an escape-chute in the weapons room. By law, every room above a certain size aboard a spaceship needed such a chute.

Lieutenant Odet's plan was for a bloodless mutiny.

Opening the inner hatch of the escape-chute, Turk swiftly placed the weapons inside. He rammed the inner hatch shut and pressed the disposal button which would open the outer hatch, ejecting into subspace all the weapons but those he now had in his possession and the few Ballinger and Harry Gault and one or two others might be carrying.

Then Turk took his food-concentrates bag and left the weapons room.

When Turk got to the dumb-waiter, a fat quartermaster Cadet named Stone was just loading trays of food that would be sent to the storeroom where Andy, Charlie Sands, and the others were imprisoned.

"Hold it, Stone! Are you the dim-brain who's been sending them meals?"

"What? Who, me?" Stone said, surprised.

"Are you or aren't you?"

"Mr. Gault gave me orders to. . . ."

"That was when there was just one of them, stupid.

What have you got, six trays there? Six trays, three times a day? How much good food do you want to waste on half a dozen would-be mutineers?"

With an exasperated heave, Turk dropped the plastic bag to the floor.

"What's that?" Stone said.

"What does it look like?" Turk demanded, still exasperated.

"Concentrates ?"

"You're brilliant, Stone. Congratulations. Here, get a move on. Help me with those trays."

Turk began to remove the trays of food from the dumb-waiter. Cadet Stone stood for a moment, perplexed, and then helped him. At last Turk set the bag of atomic pistols on the dumb-waiter.

"How do you work this thing?" he asked.

"All you have to do is . . . never mind, I'll do it."

Cadet Stone slammed the hatch and pulled a switch. Turk heard a faint groaning sound that meant the dumb-waiter was operating.

And that meant the atomic pistols were on their way up to Andy.

"Use your head from now on," Turk told the still bewildered Cadet Stone. "Maybe it will keep you out of trouble."

As he raced back along the companionway, Turk heard the clanging bells that announced the "God-dard's" change-over from sub space to normal space.

It was Charlie Sands who went to the dumb-waiter hatch when the light flashed on.

"That's funny," he said. "It's just a bag of concentrates."

At that moment they all heard the faint sound of the change-over bell.

"Anybody hungry?" Charlie asked.

A chorus of not-me's greeted his question.

"Me neither," Charlie Sands said.

Andy was restless. Thinking of the "Goddard" streaking through subspace and its rendezvous with destiny at Canopus, he had slept poorly and eaten little. Now he prowled the length of the small room twice back and forth and stood in front of the dumbwaiter. He lifted the bag off with one hand, slammed the hatch with the other, and dropped the bag to the floor.

It clanked.

"That's funny," Andy said.

He crouched and opened the bag. His eyes narrowed. Slowly he drew one of the atomic pistols out. He started to smile. "Turk!" he cried. "It's got to be Turk. You were wrong about him. He didn't betray us. He didn't."

The rest of them pounced on the plastic bag and all but ripped it apart to get at the atomic pistols.

Andy and Charlie Sands looked at each other.

"We've just gone through change-over," Andy said.

"They'll be all jammed up with work," Charlie said.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Andy asked. Charlie nodded mutely.

"Listen," Andy said, "the one thing I've got to do is get to the radio. Now that we're back in normal space, it'll work. We've got to try and contact the 'Nobel,* got to carry out whatever instructions they give us. That's our first job."

"We've also got to secure the ship," Charlie Sands pointed out. "We won't be much use to Captain Strayer if we're captured again."

Andy said, "You haven't heard Lambert Strayer talk. I have. If he's ready with a speech for the fleet, and if as a start I can give him a hookup to the 'God-dard's' intercom, I hope we can take the flagship over without a fight."

"If the 'Nobel' escaped the Monitors," Charlie Sands pointed out.

It was, Andy knew, an awesomely looming if. What if the "Nobel" had been destroyed? If it had, whatever happened in the next few minutes aboard the "Goddard" wouldn't matter at all.

Andy stood in front of the door. The others, each armed with an atomic pistol as he was, formed a half-circle behind him. Andy looked at Charlie Sands, who nodded slowly.

Andy fired.

The roar of the atomic pistol's minute charge was deafening. Andy had never fired one before, and the unexpected recoil dropped him to one knee. He glanced up and saw smoke and fused metal and Charlie Sands leading his companions through the blasted doorway. Andy ran after them.

There were two guards in the companionway. The blast had knocked one flat. He was struggling to his feet. The second, standing, confronted Charlie Sands with a short-barreled atomic rifle.

"Drop it," they both said simultaneously.

A split second before either fired, a third voice said sharply, "Drop it. You're covered."

Turk and Lieutenant Odet, both armed, stood in the companionway behind the guard. He half turned and dropped his atomic rifle.

Ten minutes later, Andy, Charlie Sands, and Turk were in the radio room of the "Goddard." Along the companionways, they had passed several spacemen hurrying to their stations. Atomic pistols tucked out of sight, Andy, Turk, and Charlie, who were also hurrying, didn't attract any attention. Lieutenant Odet had led the other Cadets in search of Captain BalJin-ger and Harry Gault, hoping to reach them before they could rally whatever section of the "Goddard's" crew would remain loyal to them. The two guards were trussed up in the storeroom with rope Lieutenant Odet had brought for the purpose.

As Andy, Turk, and Charlie entered the radio room, a Communications Lieutenant named O'Hara was calling, "Ballinger fleet, attention! Attention, all ships of the Earth fleet! We are now in normal space near the orbit of the Canopian planet. We are now. . . ."

"That's enough," Andy said. "Cut your connection, Lieutenant."

When Lieutenant O'Hara whirled, he was confronted by three drawn atomic pistols.

"What's the matter with you?" he cried. "Have you gone crazy?"

"Calm down," Andy told him. "In a few minutes we'll all be taking orders from Captain Strayer aboard the Spaceship 'Nobel.' All of us, you included. Just sit down and calm down."

Turk and Charlie advanced on him. Lieutenant O'Hara sat down and glared at them.

Andy twirled the radio dials to the "Nobel's" frequency. There was a moment of awful silence, and then faint static, and then silence again.

If the "Nobel" had been destroyed . , . with Frank aboard. . . .

"This is Cadet Marlow aboard the 'Goddard' calling the spaceship 'Nobel.' 'Goddard' calling the spaceship 'Nobel.' Come in. Come in, 'Nobel.'"

More static . . . and then, at first faintly and then more clearly, Andy heard a voice over the radio.

". . . Captain Lambert Strayer, commander of the spaceship 'Nobel,' calling the flagships of the Ballin-ger fleet. Do you hear me, flagships of the Ballinger fleet? Please respond. This is Captain Strayer, commander. . . ."

The "Nobel" had come through.

Chapter 17 Canopus

ONE BY ONE, as Andy heard the voices of the other eleven Hammerfest volunteers, the flagships called in.

" 'White Sands' under your command, Captain." " 'Cape Canaveral' awaiting orders, sir." " 'Redstone' under your command, Captain." " 'Peenemünde. . . .'" " 'Hokkaido. . . ."'

After eleven ships had reported in, Andy spoke into the radio, "Marlow aboard the 'Goddard,' Captain. We've secured the radio room, but Captain Ballinger is still unaccounted for." Tersely, Andy related the course of events aboard the "Goddard."

Captain Strayer said, "We need the 'Goddard.' We want the 'Goddard' to lead the Ballinger ships to our standard. If you lead, and if the other flagships follow, we hope to get the fleet without a fight."

"What's your position, sir? We don't have the radar room."

Andy heard another voice. "Hello, Andy. This is Frank. We are fifty thousand miles Galactic north of the Canopus ecliptic and directly north of the Star Brain's planet. Your position is a hundred thousand miles Galactic south of the ecliptic, ten thousand east of the Star Brain and fifteen degrees behind the planet's current orbital position. The Ballinger ships came out of subspace in a wedge-shaped formation with you at its apex. Have you got it?"

Jotting the figures down, Andy said, "I've got it, Frank. I hope we'll be able to make use of it."

Just then he heard the sound of footsteps pounding in the companionway outside. The "Goddard's" radio man waited expectantly. Turk and Charlie Sands stood with their atomic pistols ready.

Lieutenant Odet burst into the radio room. "We took Ballinger without a fight," he said exultantly. "Not a man aboard tried to stop us. Ever since the battle with the Monitors, they've been waiting for something like this to happen."

"What about Gault?" Charlie Sand asked.

Lieutenant Odet shook his head. "Couldn't find him. We're searching the ship. He's aboard somewhere. I don't have to tell you there are maybe a thousand places he can hide. But you don't have to worry, Cadet. What can one man do?"

Despite his own exultation at Lieutenant Odet's report, Andy felt uneasy. Harry Gault had managed to give them the slip once before, in Norway, and that had resulted in trouble.

"Mariow aboard the 'Goddard,' " he spoke into the radio. "We've got Ballinger. We're in control."

Captain Strayer said, "Then we're ready. All flagships, attention. Tell your fleets the purpose of Project Nobel. Order them to the 'Nobel' one at a time; order them to remake their formation with the 'Nobel' at the apex. 'Goddard' first, then the other flagships, then the ships of the line. They'll be waiting to see what you do aboard the flagships. We still hope to get the others without a fight."

"And if they do fight?" Lieutenant Odet said tensely into the radio.

"Bluff them. We'll blow out of space any ship that balks."

It was, Andy realized, an audacious bluff. The "Nobel" itself was unarmed, and at the moment only the dozen flagships could be relied on. If the remainder of the fleet resisted, the "Nobel" and all twelve flagships could be blown out of space.

"This is the 'Goddard,'" Andy said. "We're signing off, 'Nobel.' We'd better start broadcasting to the rest of the fleet."

Frank said, "Good luck, sprout," and then the connection went dead.

Andy dialed the Ballinger fleet frequency. A hand tapped his shoulder. It was the "Goddard's" radio man. "I know all the radio ops," he said slowly. "I went to school with most of them, and I served under Captain Strayer five years ago aboard the 'Sagittarius.' I think I could get through to them faster than you could. Just tell me what I'm supposed to say."

"I'll tell him," Charlie Sands said.

"Me," Lieutenant Odet said, "I'm going to see if I can round up Harry Gault."

Turk pretended to spit on his hands and rub them together in the age-old mock-preparation for action. "I'd better get down to gunnery, in case some of those ships have the wrong idea."

As soon as the radio man started broadcasting, Andy went to the radar room to see the results.

The "Goddard's" radar technicians left the screens to crowd around him. "What's up, Marlow?"

"Come on, Cadet. Let's have it. You're on the inside; you know the setup." "What's happening?"

"Is it true Captain Ballinger was taken prisoner?" "Aren't we going to fight our way to . . . ?" "Watch the screens," Andy said tersely. "What for?"

Andy turned to the main screen. There, as little green pips on the gridded screen, every ship of the Ballinger fleet except the "Goddard" itself could be seen. The pips formed a wedge minus its apex. A row of two pips first, immediately behind the unseen "Goddard," and then rows of three, four, five, six, and so on.

"In a few minutes we'll be moving out," Andy said. "To join Captain Strayer's ship, the 'Nobel.' After that, the other flagships ought to start moving out, then the rest of the fleet." He thought, but didn't add: if they don't, we're in trouble.

The radar technicians waited anxiously behind him. Andy felt a lurch as the "Goddard" changed course. The wedge of ships seemed to recede on the screen. On a smaller screen to its left, the single pip that was the "Goddard" grew larger.

Andy waited, aware that he was holding his breath.

A single green pip shot out of the wedge-shaped formation and streaked off the screen. Seconds later, it appeared on the screen showing the "Nobel." Then another, and another, and another, left formation.

Eleven ships ranged themselves behind the "Nobel" ... or twelve, including the "Goddard" itself, as the radio man relayed Charlie Sands's instructions.

Still Andy waited, his fists clenched. Those eleven had been a foregone conclusion; they'd been taken over by the Project Nobel volunteers, as the "Goddard" had.

But the others? They still vastly outnumbered the "Nobel" fleet. If their Captains decided to disobey. . . .

Two more green pips shot out of the radar screen formation. A cheer rose among the technicians.

Three more . . . and the formation began to lose its shape.

A single ship, and no more for two agonizing minutes.

Then ten at one time, and another ten.

A single ship again. And seven. . . .

Reed Ballinger's war fleet was rapidly becoming the escort for Captain Strayer's Project Nobel.

A metallic voice spoke above Andy's head. Startled, he turned. It was the "Goddard's" intercom, and he recognized Charlie Sands's voice. "Andy? You'd better get back to the radio room. We've picked up our first message from Canopus, something that calls itself the Guardian of the Star Brain. It could mean trouble."

Andy asked the radar technicians, "Who's in charge here?"

A grizzled, middle-aged man said, "I'm Moody, Tech 1/c, in charge of radar."

"Get on the intercom, and stay on it. If you see anything except the ships coming over, report to the radio room."

Moody came to attention and said smartly, "Yes, sir."

For the first time in his life, Andy began to feel like an officer in the space fleet.

Charlie Sands held a finger to his lips for silence as Andy rushed into the radio room. On the radio, a strange voice was saying:

"Men of Earth, you have disobeyed the Edict. We give you three hours Earth time to change over into subspace and return to your solar system. If you refuse, you will be destroyed. We have five hundred Monitors and a thousand manned ships waiting on

Canopus. If you refuse, we will move against you reluctantly . . . but move we will."

Andy heard Lambert Strayer's calm voice. "We come in peace. We have a message for the Star Brain. We came six hundred light years and more to deliver it. We intend to deliver it."

"Men of Earth," said the strange voice, "you claim you come in peace; yet your ships are armed. This is no fleet of peace. Nor is what you did in your own solar system an indication of peace. Monitor base on Luna reported a battle in space and destruction of all the Monitors."

Andy expected Captain Strayer to argue that there had been two Earth leaders, one bent on war and the other, himself, on peace. But Strayer surprised him, saying instead:

"You gave us no choice. We had to come armed; otherwise the Monitors near Earth would have shot us out of space. We had to battle the Monitors. They were not manned; only Earthmen died in the battle." He said slowly, "We believe our message to be an important one. We hope it will lead to a lifting of the Edict against Earth, but even if it doesn't we believe it is important for the welfare of the Galaxy as a whole. We ask your forbearance. We must see the Star Brain."

All at once, Captain Strayer was a magnificent figure to Andy. He could have indicted Reed Ballinger and the crews serving under him with a single word; he hadn't. Instead, claiming Earth had had no choice but to enter subspace in a war fleet, he had exonerated the thousands of men formerly under Ballinger's command. Lambert Strayer himself, as commander of the fleet, would have to take the blame for whatever happened now.

The strange voice—Andy suddenly realized it was a speaking machine translating from an alien tongue —asked, "What is your message?"

"We have prepared a history of the planet Earth for presentation to the Star Brain."

"A history of Earth? This is your important message for the Star Brain?" the machine voice asked. "Who cares about the past of a backwater planet that was ruled out of space?"

"We for one care," Strayer said crisply. "If you try to stop us, we'll resist. There'd be war. That's reason enough for you to let us through to the Star Brain, isn't it?"

"We do not see the importance of your message, men of Earth," the voice said flatly.

"We of Earth think it high time there was an interchange of ideas. You know nothing about us; we would like you to know everything. We know nothing about you; we would like to know everything. We believe such an interchange ol ideas would lead to understanding and peace such as the Galaxy has never known."

"There has never been a war until you men of Earth. . . ."

"We mean peace by consent, not by force. We mean understanding by mutual curiosity and interest, not by Edict of a machine. We mean the sort of peace and understanding that could make the Star Brain obsolete."

"This is your message?" the translating machine demanded.

"This is the idea behind the message. The message is for the Star Brain alone. It is our hope that after Earth gives its history to the Star Brain, a history we are proud of, other worlds will follow with their own histories. We believe that someday, as it should have from the beginning, the Star Brain will serve as a research center where rational beings can get information about each other, in preparation for exchanging ambassadors of good will and visiting one another's worlds personally."

"You would agree to extraterrestrials on Earth?" the voice asked. If a machine could, it sounded shocked.

Captain Strayer sighed. "I'm signing off now. Relay our message to the Star Brain. We can land as soon as we're given clearance."

There was a long pause. Then, "Very well, men of Earth. But if the Star Brain s answer is no, as we are sure it will be, the ultimatum stands. You will have three hours to return to subspace. If you don't, you will be attacked."

After five minutes, Tech 1/c Moody reported from the radar room: "We've got an alien fleet on the screen. At least a thousand ships, four wedges of them, between our position and Canopus planet."

"Keep watching them/' Andy said. "Right, sir."

Ten more minutes went by. Tech 1/c Moody made another report: "Our own ships, sir. All but twenty have joined the fleet, and those twenty are just waiting. . . . no, here come five of them now!"

Which left fifteen. One by one, Moody reported the fifteen trickling in, until finally every Ballinger ship had ranged itself behind the "Nobel." Complete solidarity, Andy realized triumphantly, but it might come to nothing if the Star Brain rejected Captain Strayer's message.

Forty-five minutes after the message had been relayed—and they were the longest forty-five minutes Andy ever spent—the machine voice announced:

"Men of Earth, the Star Brain has received and considered your message. Men of Earth, the Star Brain grants permission to land on Canopus."

That was all, but for the moment it was enough.

Earth had succeeded in bringing its plea to the electronic brain that had ruled all Earthmen out of space.

Chapter 18 The Star Brain

IN SOME WAYS, it was a world like any other world.

With a diameter of 3,900 miles—larger than Sol System's Mercury and smaller than Mars—it was a small planet. Because of its relatively low speed of escape, it had forfeited most of its atmosphere to space; what rare traces remained were confined to hollows and gorges in the convoluted crust. But the low speed of escape also meant that enormous pay-loads could be landed with little expenditure of fuel, and this had been an important factor in the selection of Canopus' single small planet as the home of the Star Brain.

Another important factor was its isolation. It was the only planet in the Canopus system, and it revolved about its enormously hot sun at a distance of almost a billion miles, giving it a temperature within the range that most of the Galactic races would find comfortable. The nearest inhabited star system was almost eighty light years away, twelve per cent of the dis-

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tance to Earth and a vast distance even by interstellar standards.

The planet was devoted entirely to the housing and operation of the Star Brain. Four times during each of its long years, each one equal to a hundred Earth years, the small custodial staff was changed, rotating among the various civilized worlds. Currently, the Capellans had the honor and the obligation of caring for the Star Brain. This, Andy realized, was one of the reasons Captain Ballinger had used to justify his first attack, for the Star Brain had ruled in favor of Capella and against Earth in a mining dispute on an uninhabited Cygnian planet. Ballinger claimed the Ca-pellan guardians of the Brain had influenced its decision.

Like all thinking machines, no matter how complex, the Star Brain could only "think" for itself within the limits established in its creation and with the data presented to its scanner. The guardians had no opportunity to alter this data, and since the Star Brain employed an objective scanner rather than a punched-tape input mechanism, there had been no opportunity for the Capellan guardians to use their position to edit the data on the Capella-Earth dispute.

The Brain itself was housed underground in an area of several square miles straddling the planet's equator. The city of the guardians, which had not been damaged by Reed Ballinger s bombing, was also underground several miles away. Except for the evidence of the Canopian planet's one huge spacefield, equipped to handle the largest space fleets in the Galaxy, there were no signs of life, for, like most of the Canopian atmosphere, every molecule of its water had escaped to space ages before the Star Brain was built. It was a world of bare, unweathered rock, of stark mountains and deep basins which, aeons ago, had been ocean beds. Fossil remains, hundreds of millions of years old, of simple life forms had been found. Life on the Canopus planet had died before it could evolve to higher forms.

In order to supply the answers to any questions fed its scanner, the Star Brain filed data on every inhabited or explored stellar system in the Galaxy. But its memory banks were bereft of any information as to culture, history, religion, philosophy, or art, except as these items were pertinent to current interstellar activity. The memory banks had no information at all on the historical development of the Confederacy's scores of worlds prior to the discovery of interstellar travel and subspace drive.

First the flagship "Nobel," and then one by one all the other ships of the fleet from distant Earth, landed at the huge spaceport. Capellan ground crewmen, in radio contact with each ship in turn, directed the landing activities.

The Capellans, who were bilaterally symmetrical like most of the intelligent races of the Galaxy, were gill- and lung-breathing amphibians with scaly skins. Despite the suitable temperature of the Canopus planet, they had to wear spacesuits, as well as helmets to keep their gills moist, while the debarking Earth-men could suffice with just their transparent plastic helmets.

Knowing little about their world, which was the fourth planet of the star Capella, and up to now caring less, and never having set foot on it as the Capellans never had set foot on Earth, Earthmen called the Capellans lizard-men. They, in their language, called Earthmen anthropoid-lizards, which must have meant there were ape-like creatures native to the Capellan planet. Earth did not know for sure. Men had never been there.

It took the crew of the "Nobel" two days to unload the records and models and samples of thousands of years of civilization on Earth. All the while the spaceships of the guardian fleet orbited watchfully overhead. Earth, after all, was still the mad dog of the universe.

Units from all members of the Confederacy except outlawed Earth composed the fleet. If Earthmen truly had come to Canopus a second time bent on destruction, and so far there was nothing but Captain Stray-er s word to indicate they hadn't, they never would leave Canopus planet alive. The grounded Earth fleet would be helpless under the rocket guns of the orbiting guardian fleet.

At first there was no fraternization between "lizard-men" and "anthropoid-lizards." But since before the Edict Earth's turn hadn't come to take over the twenty-five year guardianship of the Brain, the crews of the Earth ships were intensely curious about it. Grudgingly to begin with, and then with more enthusiasm, impromptu groups of Capellan guides in their spacesuits and helmets, using the built-in helmet translators which could convert speech from any Confederacy language to any other, began to show the idle Earth crewmen through the brightly lit underground chambers and passages of the Star Brain.

Soon nothing but skeleton crews manned the waiting Earth ships by day, and by night after the ice was broken some of the Earthmen slept in the guardians' quarters.

On the second day after landing, Andy and Turk joined a sightseeing group that was led underground by three Capellans. They passed through the vaults of the Brain's memory banks, through the chambers of the yes-no digital computers and the more sophisticated analog computers, through the self-repair bays that had made the guardians' job largely one of the checking rather than repairing.

Three things remained most vividly in Andy's memory: the Brain's power plant, its scanning mechanism, and the dome-shaped answer chamber.

In the power plant, the spokesman for the three Capellans said, "You will notice how miniaturization has been used. Enough electricity is generated in this room to run a small planet. Microscopic germanium crystals have now replaced the semiconductors which originally were used." The Capellan, his voice rendered emotionless by his helmet translator, couldn't resist a not too subtle dig. "We are now in this chamber, men of Earth, a thousand feet underground. That is why your Captain Ballinger failed to do great damage when he bombed the Brain. Though he put those units nearer the surface out of commission, the Brain's self-repair mechanism, a physical development of what used to be called feedback, could and did handle the damage." What might have been laughter— lizard-laughter? thought Andy—emerged from the Capellan's speaker. "Fortunately for you, men of Earth, the Star Brain can harbor no grudge. Resentment, you see, was not built into its computer system, something devoutly to be wished for the protoplasmic brains of Earthmen."

The Star Brain's scanning mechanism was next. It was a long, vault-like chamber with a high ceiling and receiving screens on all four walls. High along one wall was a narrow catwalk patrolled by the guardians, and it was on this ramp that the guides took the Earth-men. They had come just in time to see the beginning of Earth's case on its own behalf. Three "Nobel" anthropologists stood in the center of the room, preparing to project slides on one of the screens.

Their leader was a Lebanese named Habib Malik, and while the Star Brain listened to and recorded his words, he said:

"My name is Malik. I am an anthropologist from American University in Beirut, Lebanon, a small independent state in Western Asia, the largest of Earth's continents. I am here to tell you of the earliest advent of premodern man on the planet Earth.

"We do not know how long ago the prelizard-men of Capella first emerged from their native swamps, though we would like to. We do not know how long ago the prebirdmen of Sirius came down from their loftiest branches, though we would like to. We do not know how long ago the pre-intelligent ungulates of Arcturus left their meadows to build the cities of their civilization, though we would like to.

"We believe, in short, that our presentation of the history and achievements—yes, and failures—of Earthmen can be a valuable beginning. Whatever your decision on the merits of Earth's plea to be allowed to return to space, at least this record we give you will become a part of your memory banks. If nothing else, we hope it instills a desire in the other members of the Confederacy to do the same and present their histories. We believe along this road lies the only sure way to permanent mutual understanding."

Habib Malik, a small, bald, olive-skinned man of middle age, took a deep breath, stared at the blank unanswering screen, and went on: "Just. as the physical sciences on all the worlds have, through new discoveries, constantly pushed back the date of the beginning of the physical universe of stars and nebulae so that now we can safely say the Galaxy is not less than twelve billion years old and may be a very great deal older than that, so the anthropologists of Earth, through new discoveries, have constantly pushed back the date of earliest man. By earliest man we mean clearly a member of genus homo rather than a half-man, half-ape. We would like to begin our story with this earliest true man, not yet homo sapiens as you see him standing before you, but more than an animal.

"The distinction between animal and man, we anthropologists always have contended, is one of tool making. The first true men fashioned tools with a purpose—whether for hunting or the skinning of animals or, regrettably, warfare against his fellows—out of material at hand. He. . . ."

Andy's guide, hearing the translation in his helmet, said excitedly, "Why, it is so on Capella, too! That is the very distinction we make.''

". . . tools culminating finally in the most complex device ever developed on any world," Malik was saying. "And by this, of course, I mean the Star Brain. But if man and the other intelligent races had not started with simple flint knives and spearheads, the ultimate evolution to a Star Brain would have been impossible.

"The earliest known true man's remains were found on the continent of Africa, in a place called Olduvi Gorge at the southern end of the Great Rift Valley. For this reason, we call him Olduvi man.

"Geologically, he belongs to the Lower Pleistocene period. That is to say, Olduvi man was making his first crude tools in the Great Rift Valley six hundred thousand years ago."

"Remarkable!" exclaimed the Capellan. "We, too, on Capella date our earliest true ancestor back at least six hundred thousands of your years ago. It is as if our evolutions had started coevally across the gulf of light years."

They waited on the catwalk, listening intently to Habib Malik's words. If anything, the Capellans, for the first time being granted a vision of Earth's past, seemed more interested than their companions from Earth.

When Malik finished his presentation, the second anthropologist began to speak. "If Olduvi man was the first true man, then Cro-Magnon man was the first full man. Thirty or forty thousand years ago, he appeared in Western Europe, a small peninsula jutting west from the great Asian land mass, and. . . ."

"I am afraid we must leave," the Capellan guide said with frank regret. "We must go on duty shortly, you see. But even if we don't guide you again, we'll be back here. I for one want to learn more of this."

It was, Andy told himself happily, a magnificent start. The Star Brain's objective interest was assured, but the curiosity of their Capellan guides was as unexpected as it was heartening.

The dome-shaped answer chamber was next. Here was no drama of an Earthman presenting his case far across the Galaxy. Here, for now, was utter silence. Here was the high gleaming dome under which, dispassionately, the Star Brain administered justice for all the far-flung worlds of the Confederacy. Here, in a few days' time, an era might end for Earth if the Edict remained in force. Or here, if Earth made its point, a new era might begin for the entire Galaxy.

"What happens after that caveman stuff?" Turk asked Andy after their guides had conducted them back to the surface.

"Frank told me we keep going around the clock until we finish."

"If they talk like that," Turk protested, "it will take months."

"No, it won't," Andy explained. "Each scientist simply introduces his subject; then written data are fed to the scanner. Captain Strayer thinks forty-eight hours ought to do the whole job."

"Then why bother to make the speeches at all?"

"Captain Strayer says we want to do more than feed objective data to the Star Brain. We want to show our pride, too, and the easiest way to show it is by talking about it. You saw how excited the Capellan got, didn't you?"

Later that day, Andy and Turk returned to the scanner room to see Dr. Seys stand before the four screens.

"My name is Dr. Seys," he said. "I am a historian of classic civilization at the University of Vienna in Austria, a small nation in the east of Europe.

"You have now seen how man's earliest, but admittedly barbaric and superstition-motivated, civilizations sprang up in the river valleys of the Indus, the

Tigris-Euphrates, and the Nile. It is now my honor to introduce what many men of Earth consider the first true rational society. This was no hidebound civilization limited geographically by the extent of a river valley and morally by the totalitarian rule of a select group. For its citizens, this was the first attempt ever made at true democracy, and in some ways, though the franchise was limited, the attempt never has been surpassed.

"The civilization I am introducing sprang up on the shores of a great sea, called the Mediterranean. Its peoples called themselves Hellenes. We today call them Greeks.

"Three thousand years ago in one packed century and chiefly in one small city they built virtually out of chaos a civilization all Earth can look to with pride. The century was what, in our calendar, was called the fifth century B.C. Later today you will see with what good reason our calendar is divided into B.C. and A.D., but that is not my province. The one small city was the city of Athens.

"It produced in a span of less than a hundred years, three of the greatest dramatists the Earth ever has known. These were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and their works will be fed into the scanner later. It produced three philosophers without peer on Earth: Socrates, his disciple Plato; and Plato's disciple Aristotle. Its architecture. . . ."

Andy listened, fascinated. He became aware of several Capellans joining him and Turk on the catwalk. They were guiding no Earthmen but had come because they wanted to hear.

". . . 'nothing in excess,'" Dr. Seys was saying. "But that is ironic, for though it was the guiding motto of these Hellenes of Athens, theirs was the most exuberant, active, Dionysian, excessive civilization the Earth was to know until Elizabethan England, which you shall hear about later. My point is that such a motto is revered precisely because it was the opposite of the exuberance confronting Socrates. But if the very excesses of the Greeks made possible a Socrates or a Euripides, we of Earth are thankful for it."

Dr. Seys spoke for fifteen minutes more, and then an historian Andy didn't know began to speak of the conquest of Greece by the Macedonians and the spreading, by the sword of Alexander the Great, of Hellenic culture as far as India.

"Incredible!" said one of the Capellans.

"Starting from one small city," said another.

"Didn't our earliest attempts at a moral democracy start in the small seacoast town of Erbodine?"

At dusk, Andy and Turk returned to the "Goddard."

They trudged the several miles from the entrance to the Star Brain's underground vault to the spaceport on foot. At least, they started out trudging, for both were tired from sightseeing and the suspense of waiting for the Star Brain's decision.

But Canopus planet's less than normal Earth gravity and their optimism after seeing the Capellan reaction to the first few hours of Earth's presentation combined to make them kick up their heels. Turk jumped fifteen feet into the ah*, executed a somersault and landed on his feet. Andy pranced in fifteen-foot strides. Turk cartwheeled prodigiously. Andy left the path to clear an enormous boulder in a single leap.

Panting and sweating under their helmets, they looked at each other and laughed. "It's almost like Luna," Turk said, referring to the light gravity.

"It's better than Luna," Andy said. "If we succeed, we can bring the races of the Galaxy together more than they've ever been before."

"You're liable to be a spaceman and an archaeologist," Turk predicted.

Andy nodded happily. A few minutes later, they met a dozen crewmen of the "Goddard" on the road.

"Why are you going back to the ship?" one of them asked.

"We've all been invited to a party at the Capellans," said another. "Going to sample some of the native delicacies."

A third punned, "If we're the skeleton crew, isn't it time we put some flesh on our bones?"

"Who's still aboard the 'Goddard'?" Andy asked.

"Charlie Sands and a radar tech named Moody. Don't worry, Captain Ballinger will keep."

"I was thinking of Gault. He still hasn't been found," Andy pointed out.

"What do you expect? The 'Goddard's' twelve hundred feet long and almost two hundred feet in the beam. Lots of places a man can hide, but so what? Now that we've landed on Canopus, there's nothing Ballinger or Gault can do. They're just two men, Gault's in hiding, and Ballinger doesn't have a fleet to back him up."

Andy and Turk approached the "Goddard." It was almost dark now. A few lights glowed in the great ship's portholes, and a firefly sprinkling of lights dotted the field from the other ships of the fleet.

As they went up the ramp to the open aft hatch, Andy called, "Charlie? Charlie Sands?"

There was no answer.

"Moody?" Andy said, and his voice was louder.

All exits but the aft hatch had been locked on a timing device; so Andy assumed either Charlie Sands or Moody, or both, would be standing their watch there.

Again there was no answer. He ran the rest of the way up the ramp, Turk at his heels.

They found Charlie Sands on the companionway floor beyond the airlock. Turk and Andy kneeled beside him. He was lying face down. Andy touched his shoulder. Charlie groaned and blinked his eyes and tried to sit up. His lips were moving, Andy realized, but he couldn't hear the words through his helmet. All thumbs, he unscrewed the lugs and yanked the plastic globe over his head.

". . . thought it was Moody," Charlie was saying. Gingerly he touched the back of his head. He repeated, "I heard someone coming up behind me. I thought it was Moody. I started to turn. I . . . whoever it was slugged me from behind."

"Stay with him," Andy told Turk, and sprinted down the companionway toward the "Goddard's" brig.

Even before he reached it, he could hear Tech 1/c Moody bellowing.

Moody was in the cell where Ballinger had been locked up. When he saw Andy he shouted, "We had it all figured out. I watched the cell, and Sands was at the airlock. Then Ballinger said he was sick; so I went over to him. Hurry up and get me out of here, will you?"

"I can't," Andy said. "I don't have the key."

Moody went on, "Somebody—I don't know who —took me from behind. The next thing I knew, I was locked in. Ballinger's gone."

The only one who could have taken him from behind, Andy knew, was Harry Gault.

Now Ballinger and Harry Gault were on the loose.

Andy ran back to the airlock, where Charlie, with Turk's help, had climbed unsteadily to his feet.

"Ballinger?" Turk asked. "Gault?"

"It has to be."

"You want me to get on the radio and sound the alarm?"

Andy was about to nod, but didn't. "Before the Brain gave us permission to land," he said, "Captain Strayer took the blame for the Earth fleet's being armed to the teeth. He didn't want the Brain to know the entire fleet except for the 'Nobel' had been assembled under Reed Ballinger to attack Canopus again. Whatever else happened, he wanted Earth to present a united front."

"So?" Turk said. "This is different. If Ballinger and Gault are on the loose, there's only one place they'd go. To the Brain. If they give the Brain any trouble while Captain Strayer's scientists are presenting Earth's case, what do you think will happen?"

"We'd be kicked out of space for good," Charlie predicted.

"That's just it," Andy insisted. "They've got to be stopped, but it has to be done quietly. Captain Strayer didn't tell the Brain Reed Ballinger was aboard the fleet, did he? We've got to back up Strayer's story."

As he spoke, Andy was screwing on his helmet. The rest of what he said came to Turk through his helmet intercom. "Does Charlie have a gun?"

"Whoever hit him . . ."

"That was Gault."

". . . took it."

"Get yourself some weapons," Andy said. "Then find Frank and Captain Strayer. They're probably aboard the 'Nobel.' I'm going after Ballinger."

"Alone? Are you crazy? He'll be desperate."

"That's just it. Whatever he has up his sleeve, I've got to delay him." Andy entered the airlock. "I'm going back to the Brain. I'll wait for you there."

Before Turk could protest again, Andy was gone.

CkttptCT ]*7 Home Is the Spaceman

RUNNING all the way, and with an assist from the light gravity, Andy reached the vault of the Star Brain in fifteen minutes. He had met no one en route.

Two Capellans in space suits were lounging at the entrance to the vault.

"Did you see a couple of Earthmen come this way?"

"Your scientists are in the scanner room even now, Earthman."

"Not scientists. Just two men. Sightseers maybe?"

"Two Earthmen, one tall and the other short, came not ten minutes ago."

"Where are they?" One tall and one short . . . that could be Reed Ballinger and Harry Gault.

"They were sightseers, as you said, Earthman. They asked the way to the power plant."

Andy said, "My name's Marlow. In a while some Earthmen are going to come looking for me. Will you tell them that's where I went? The power plant?"

"Is something troubling you, Earthman?"

"No. It's nothing."

The Capellans, on casual sentry duty, were armed. Andy had to check an impulse to ask them for help.

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But, now that he knew they'd made straight for the power plant, Andy didn't have to guess what Bal-linger's and Gault's purpose was. If they damaged the power plant, they would put the whole complex mechanism of the Brain out of commission. They were bent on destruction; they had to be. For revenge against their fellow Earthmen who had thwarted them by landing on Canopus planet to present Earth's case? Or to present the destruction of the Brain as an accomplished fact in an attempt to rally the Ballinger crews behind them again?

Andy rushed down the brightly lit corridors to the vault that housed the power plant.

The shadow of a man loomed in the last corridor.

Andy flattened himself against the wall. He looked in the power plant.

Reed Ballinger had just straightened up. In his right hand was an empty briefcase. On the floor at his feet was a squat black box.

A bomb?

Andy told himself it had to be. In a way, it was ironic. Hundreds of Monitors and the great guardian fleet made up of ships from all the worlds protected the Star Brain from attack. But if you pierced those defenses by subterfuge—and Ballinger had by the simple fact of being a prisoner—the Brain was vulnerable. Its guardians never dreamed an enemy could land on Canopus planet.

Waiting in the shadows against the wall, Andy knew all he needed was one lucky break. If Ballinger, on the way out, didn't see him, he could go in and remove the bomb. He'd have time. It had to be set for delayed detonation, for Ballinger himself needed a chance to escape.

Andy felt his muscles growing tense. Reed Ballinger was stepping through the doorway. Another few moments and. . . .

Something hard prodded Andy's back. He jerked rigid.

"Don't turn around, boy. Just step inside there." Ballinger looked at him. But it wasn't Ballinger who had spoken. The voice was Harry Gault's.

"All right, Turk," Frank Marlow said. "Calm down. Calm down, and let's hear it again."

"Ballinger, sir!" Turk blurted. "He escaped off the 'Goddard.' He's on his way to the Brain with Harry Gault. Andy didn't want to sound a general alarm because Captain Strayer ... he said ... he went after Ballinger and Gault himself."

Frank was heading for the airlock of the "Nobel." He called over his shoulder, "Captain Strayer's on dining deck eating. Get him. I'm on my way."

"Sir!" Turk called after him. "You'd better go armed."

Frank turned around in his tracks and ran toward the small weapons room of the "Nobel."

"You betrayed us once, Cadet," Harry Gault accused Andy in the Star Brain's power plant. "In White Sands I offered you a job with Captain Ballinger, but that wasn't enough for you. You had to. . . ."

Reed Ballinger cut him off impatiently. "Twenty minutes, Harry," he said. "She's set to blow in twenty minutes." If anything, Captain Ballinger understated the simple words which could, if the statement became fact, bring so much grief to the Galaxy. But there was a remoteness in his voice and expression, too, as if, now that he had committed himself, he wanted to stand apart from his act and watch the results only as an interested observer.

Maybe, Andy thought, that could explain what was wrong with Captain Ballinger. He was a born leader of men; he had proved that. But somehow he couldn't make a complete commitment. He was the lone man on a mountain peak, watching the tiny insects—unworthy of him, he believed—crawl far, far below.

Harry Gault gestured at Andy with his atomic pistol. "What do we do with him?"

"All chaos will break loose when the bomb goes off," Reed Ballinger said. "We can't take him back to the ship. He'd only give us trouble."

"We can't let him go," Harry Gault said.

Ballinger gazed for a long moment at Andy and nodded. "I'm going up. You do what you want with him, then follow me."

Ballinger started to leave.

"Captain Ballinger!" Andy called. "Don't do it. It isn't too late. You can still take the bomb out with you. Don't do it. You've got the fate of Earth in your hands. I've watched the Project Nobel scientists presenting their case to the Brain. I've watched the reaction of the Capellans. They're curious and interested. Don't do it, Captain. I think there's a good chance the Edict will be dropped. I think there's a good chance Earth will be allowed in space again. That's what you want, isn't it?"

Reed Ballinger smiled a handsome smile. "Is it? Is that what I want? Earth with the right to return to space, while I'm returned to Earth in disgrace? Earthbound for life, if not worse? Tried and imprisoned perhaps? Do you really think that's what I want?"

"Would you put your own future above Earth's? Would you just. . . ."

"I showed them the way. I built and assembled the fleet and got recruits for it. It was my fleet, Cadet, to do this my way. They turned me down. They betrayed me. Does that answer your question?"

Reed Ballinger stalked out of the power plant.

For several seconds Gault looked at Andy. Finally he said, "I guess I don't have to shoot you, Cadet."

"It still isn't too late," Andy said desperately. "Do you think Earth will ever forgive Reed Ballinger for what's about to happen? Do you think the rest of the Galaxy will ever forgive Earth? You can do it if Ballinger won't, Gault. You can walk right out of here with the bomb."

"I don't have to shoot you because I can just leave you in here with the bomb."

Gault backed toward the doorway, holding Andy at bay with the atomic pistol. He stepped out into the corridor and shut the heavy door with a resounding thud.

Andy heard the lock fall into place.

He ran to the door and tried it. It was metal. It wouldn't budge. Though there was a lock on the inside, it didn't operate the outside lock.

What had Ballinger said? She's set to go off in twenty minutes. That was five minutes ago. Andy still had fifteen minutes left, fifteen minutes to open and disassemble the bomb.

He examined it. He lifted it. The bomb only weighed a few pounds. Andy couldn't hear any ticking. The bomb case was solid plastic, seamless.

After five minutes Andy knew he couldn't open it without tools.

"An Earthman named Marlow said you would find him in the power plant," the Capellan told Frank.

"When?"

"A while ago."

"Was he alone?"

"He asked about two other Earthmen who went there."

Frank and Turk started running, with Captain Srrayer and Charlie Sands close behind.

. . . three minutes to go.

Andy thought of Earth, of the pale green mist that covered the branches in a temperate zone forest in early spring, of the deep green of a summer meadow, of the sound a brook made rushing over the smooth stones of its bed. He thought of the starry skies of space, of all the vast reaches from Earth to Ophiu-chus and beyond, still unexplored, of the double profession of spaceman and archaeologist that Turk had predicted for him.

Two minutes to go. . . .

When Gault and Ballinger, coming out, met Frank, Captain Strayer, Turk, and Charlie in the corridor, Harry Gault fired first.

The blast from his atomic pistol seared past Frank's head, and Frank returned the fire. Gault screamed; his arm went limp. He dropped the pistol and fell back against Reed Ballinger.

Frank, Captain Strayer and the two Cadets quickly surrounded them. Frank said levelly, "Drop your weapon, Ballinger. I don't have to tell you I'd shoot you if I had to."

Ballinger did as he was told, but he was smiling. "You're too late," he said. "It would take you at least five minutes to get down there, and I'm very much afraid you don't have five minutes. In seconds the bomb will go off."

Captain Strayer and Frank stared at each other blankly. Several seconds passed, and then below them they heard a booming explosion. "Andy!" Frank cried in despair.

When there was exactly one minute to go, Andy said out loud, "We should have told the Star Brain. Captain Strayer was wrong. We should have admitted what the fleet's purpose was. Then maybe the Brain could have prepared. . . ."

Andy stopped short. An echoing mechanical voice from an unseen speaker said, "What was the purpose of the fleet, Earthman?"

"Who is it?" Andy shouted. "Who's talking?"

"Foolish Earthman. Do you think I wouldn't have a scanner in my own power plant? But how I can judge you men of Earth if you don't tell the truth, if you try to deceive me . . . ?"

How much time? Thirty seconds? "It's too late," Andy said. "There's a bomb in here. About to go off. Reed Ballinger set it. He was aboard the fleet. He commanded it in the beginning. But the Project Nobel people, under Captain Strayer, won control, and except for one henchman Captain Ballinger didn't have a man left on his side. That's the truth."

A brief silence as the seconds ticked on. Then, "I believe you, man of Earth. Now stand back against the wall."

Andy did as he was ordered. He heard a grinding sound overhead. A slit appeared in the ceiling and widened. A large cone-shaped shield of metal dropped toward the floor over Reed Ballinger's bomb.

The instant the shield was in place, the bomb exploded. The shield shook. The noise was tremendous.

But no damage had been done.

Andy stood there dumbfounded.

"Self-repair," said the Star Brain. "A physical extension of feedback, Earthman. But my scanner waits for words. If you hadn't spoken when you did. . . ."

Andy felt weak all over. "What are you going to do about the Edict?" he demanded boldly.

The machine said only, "Data insufficient at this time."

Moments later Andy heard banging on the door, and Frank's voice sobbing his name over and over.

"It's all right," Andy said tremulously. "I think I've made a friend. Just unlock the door."

It was two days later. Earthmen and Capellans were crowded into the high-domed answer chamber of the Star Brain. The Project Nobel scientists had presented Earth's case. Reed Ballinger and Harry Gault were under heavy guard aboard the "God-dard." Whatever happened, they would be taken back to Earth for trial.

"What is it waiting for?" a Capellan said impatiently.

Captain Strayer was pacing back and forth. Turk and Andy stood side by side, Frank close to them.

"Data now sufficient," boomed the Star Brain suddenly.

More silence, then:

"Yours is a fascinating story, men of Earth. But I gather it is not unique. I gather that if each of the many worlds that built me came here with its story I would learn similar histories of achievement and failure, of good and evil. Is that correct?"

Andy heard the Capellans gasp. It was the first time the Star Brain ever had asked a question.

"That's correct," Captain Strayer said prompdy.

"I also gather," said the Star Brain, "that you tried to deceive me. A second time I was close to bombing . . . and by the same man of Earth. Is this what you consider a guarantee of your good intentions?"

Another question from the Star Brain. The Capellans were astonished. Captain Strayer glanced at Andy, who had told him what had happened in the power plant. Stepping forward, Captain Strayer said:

"We never guaranteed our good intentions. You said it yourself: among humans there is achievement and failure, good and evil. We do what we can. We are not machines. We have emotions."

There was a long silence. The Capellans looked at each other anxiously. Then the Star Brain said:

"Earth's motive in presenting Earth's history was to be granted another chance in space. The question now is whether or not I will remove the Edict that has outlawed Earthmen from space." Andy held his breath.

"The answer is that I will. Earth is free to join the Confederacy as an active member again."

A great shout went up, loud in Andy's helmet intercom. The listening Capellans contributed to it as much as the Earthmen.

"Under one condition," said the Star Brain. "And that is this: every member of the Confederacy must prepare a history as Earth has done. I need more data. Repeat: I need more data. For what happened here proves that you creatures of protoplasm, my builders, from whatever world and in whatever shape, are no machines. You emote. Whether for good or for bad, only the future will tell. Repeat: I need more data.

"But creatures of Earth and creatures of Capella, I can see a time when the sentient beings of the Galaxy, not their mechanical creations, must fully determine their own future. The sooner you all present your data, the sooner this time will come.

"I can see a future in which the Brain you have built will be nothing but a clearing house for the mutual exchange of knowledge. I can see a Galactic civilization living in harmony from Ophiuchus to the Magellanic Clouds. I can see. . . ."

"When?" shouted a Capellan.

"Data insufficient," answered the Star Brain.

About the Author

MILTONLESSER is the author of many science fiction novels, among them The Star Seekers, Earthbound, and Stadium Beyond the Stars. His stories have appeared in leading magazines. He has written for television, edited anthologies, and is an experienced consultant on science fiction articles.

A New Yorker by birth and a graduate of the College of William and Mary in Virginia, he has traveled in twenty-odd countries on three continents, skiing in Canada, mountain climbing in Switzerland and exploring fjords in Norway—all because planet-hopping is still a few years off.