Revolt of the Outworlds

By Stephen Marlowe

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Title: Revolt of the Outworlds

Author: Milton Lesser

Release Date: October 14, 2021 [eBook #66538]

Language: English


Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REVOLT OF THE OUTWORLDS ***




                        REVOLT OF THE OUTWORLDS

                           By Milton Lesser

              Alan Tremaine knew Mars received its water
           via the space-warp from Venus. If this life-line
           were cut it meant war--and mankind's destruction!

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
                             December 1954
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Amplifiers swelled the clarion call of the trumpet above the keening
Martian wind which swept into the great central plaza of Syrtis Major
City. Two hundred thousand outworld citizens, the entire population of
Syrtis, huddled together in the cold and watched the blue and gold
banner of the Outworld Federation run up the pole to flutter proudly
beside the globe-and-stars flag of Earth.

There was a tremendous roar from the crowd as Alan Tremaine climbed
the long flight of steps leading to the platform in the center of
the plaza. _It's really my father they're applauding_, Alan Tremaine
thought. The elder Tremaine, dead these two weeks, had made the dream
of independence a reality for the Outworlds. Then, on the eve of
success, he had been struck down by a still unknown assassin. Alan had
been rushed from New Washington University on Earth by the Outworld
Federation, to bring the magic name of Tremaine to the ceremony on Mars.

Above him now, Alan could see the military governor of Mars, Lieutenant
General Roderick Olmstead, waiting alongside the banks of huge
television screens which showed similar scenes on Venus, on Saturn's
great moon Titan, on the four large Jovian satellites. But the eyes
of all the Outworlds were here on Mars as Alan Tremaine mounted the
platform to accept the Declaration of Sovereignty from the governor.

A hush descended on the crowd as General Olmstead unrolled the
scroll and held it before the television cameras. "On behalf of the
government of Earth," he said, his voice booming across the Syrtis
plaza on the amplifiers, "I present this Declaration of Sovereignty to
the people of all the Outworlds. The five hundred million citizens of
Mars, Venus, Titan and the Jovian Moons will hereafter march alongside
the peoples of Earth in Equal Union."

Two hundred thousand voices rose in a thunderous peal of acclaim.

"It is to your everlasting credit," General Olmstead went on, "that
your great struggle for freedom bears fruit today bloodlessly. History
shall long remember this moment, for the grim alternative of war was
always present but shunned by your very great leader, Richard Tremaine."

There was not a sound now in all the vast crowd. Alan Tremaine thought
it must be the same elsewhere, with half a billion Outworld citizens
watching on their television screens across the solar system.

"The one tragedy of your greatest moment," General Olmstead concluded,
"is that Richard Tremaine did not live to see it become a reality. I
now place this scroll in the hands of his only son, Alan Tremaine."

His eyes suddenly misty, Alan accepted the Declaration of Sovereignty
from General Olmstead. The long political struggle, climaxed today on
the windswept plaza of Syrtis Major City, was not his. Attending New
Washington University on Earth, he had missed the dramatic sequence of
events which led to this day. Almost, he felt like an outsider. But he
believed in their fight even if he had had no active part in it. And
the name Tremaine was now lifted into the pale sky above Syrtis Plaza
on two hundred thousand voices.

"Tremaine! Tremaine! Speech! Speech!"

Alan took a deep breath and cleared his throat. Faces as numerous as
the desert sands of Mars gazed up at him. Untold millions more watched
their television screens on the other Outworlds. Seated beside her
father, Laura Olmstead smiled at him.

"I humbly accept this Declaration of Sovereignty on behalf of all
the Outworlds and on behalf of my father," Alan said. "I'm sure that
on this day my father would offer thanks to God that our freedom was
achieved without violence."

       *       *       *       *       *

Just then the television screens depicting smaller ceremonies on the
other Outworlds erupted into violent activity. There was muted thunder
from the Venus screen. People could be seen running about wildly,
the drone of jets was heard. Brilliant light flared, blanking the
screen momentarily. When it could be seen again, a mushroom-topped
atomic cloud was rising from the crater which had been the Governor's
Headquarters on Venus. The scene was the same on Titan and the four
Jovian Moons.

A voice blared: "Attention! Attention Mars. This is Government Station,
Ganymede. Seconds ago, the Outworld Federation met freedom with
treachery. Even as tactical atomic weapons were used on the Government
Headquarters, their speakers were proclaiming peaceful union. But now
the masses have risen behind the spectre of military violence. 'Equal
Union is not enough,' their leaders cry. 'We're ready to fight for
total independence!' The traitorous Federation militia is marching
on the underground Government Station here. Protect yourself, Mars!"
Abruptly, the staccato blast of an automatic hand weapon could be
heard. The voice from Ganymede was stilled.

General Olmstead rushed to the microphone, pushing Alan roughly aside.
"All Martian units!" he cried. "Prepare for war. Directive A-2, this
headquarters, put into immediate effect. Martial law is proclaimed.
All civilian authority is hereby terminated. Protect the spacefield
and the government station. All commissioned leaders of the Outworld
Federation on Mars will surrender themselves, weaponless, to the
military authorities. Those who resist face immediate arrest." All at
once, the microphone squawked into silence. Someone had cut off the
generators below the platform.

"Tremaine," General Olmstead raged, "your father is better off dead.
Seeing this happen would have killed him. Your name will go down in
history, all right--as the worst traitor since Benedict Arnold."

Alan shook his head. It all had happened so fast, his senses were still
numb with shock. The Federation had told him nothing about this. The
Federation had been content with Equal Union, his father's dream. True,
a militant minority group within the Federation had longed for total
independence, through violence if necessary, but Richard Tremaine had
always opposed this. Now, it had happened.

Military control of Venus, Titan and the Jovian moons was inadequate.
In hours, the governments would fall. The same was true for the smaller
centers of Martian population, but Earth maintained its strongest
military garrison in Syrtis Major City. Here the Earth forces, under
General Olmstead, could probably hold their own.

But it was open revolt now, something which the dead Richard Tremaine
had opposed as steadfastly as he had opposed Earth domination of the
Outworlds.

"I didn't know," Alan began. "Nobody told me...."

His voice was drowned in a swirling sea of sound as Federation
militiamen threw their wind cloaks and revealed the uniforms beneath
them as they charged up the steps toward the platform. Government
soldiers, storming up the other side, waited for them. As yet, not a
weapon had been fired in Syrtis.

"Stop!" Alan cried, rushing to the edge of the platform. "Are you
insane? We wanted Equal Union. We've been granted Equal Union. Put down
your weapons and go home."

       *       *       *       *       *

The front rank of the militiamen, three abreast on the stairs, paused.
This was a Tremaine talking. There was a difference between father and
son, of course, but a Tremaine had made this day possible.

The leader of the militiamen, a bearded fellow in the uniform of a
major, shook his head. "You don't know, Mr. Tremaine. You weren't here
when your father spoke his last words. We're carrying out the orders
of Richard Tremaine!"

Two government soldiers who had mounted the other side of the platform
came up behind Alan and pinned his arms to his sides. "Go ahead and
fire," one of them said. "Kill Tremaine's son, why don't you?"

The front rank of militiamen was being pressed up the stairs from
behind, but had returned their weapons to their sides. Alan struggled
with the soldiers who held him. Below the platform, the vast crowd was
seething restlessly, watching the drama unfold above them. The thin
sprinkling of government soldiers in their midst could be swept under
in seconds unless government station reinforcements were sent at once.

Alan thrust his elbow back, felt it jar against the ribs of one of the
soldiers. The man gasped as the air was forced from his lungs. Still
gasping, he was spun around by Alan and hurled down on the militiamen
mounting the stairs at the head of the platform. Alan whirled, but the
second soldier was on him, circling his neck with a powerful arm. They
went down together, thrashing and rolling across the platform.

Something roared overhead. Alan was aware of General Olmstead, his
daughter Laura huddled behind him, pointing up at the sky. Then a
shadow passed swiftly over the platform, came back--and hovered. The
roar was replaced by a loud clattering. Still wrestling with the
soldier, Alan could see a jet-copter, switching from jets to rotors,
hanging half a dozen feet above the platform like an enormous black
grasshopper.

More militiamen leaped from the copter to join those swarming up
the stairs, their hand weapons spitting death at the first rank of
government soldiers which had come up the other side of the platform.
The revolution in Syrtis Major City was an actual fact now.

"Get down!" General Olmstead told his daughter. "Flatten yourself."

But the brief firing atop the platform had cleared it of government
soldiers. Rope ladders were dropped from the jet-copter.

"Tremaine," someone called from above. "Climb up quickly."

To remain here in Syrtis Major City was madness. Alan could accomplish
nothing in the chaos of revolt. Besides, the militiaman had said this
was his father's final wish. Armed rebellion for total independence.
He had to find out. He caught the swaying rope ladder in his hands and
mounted it. At the same moment, General Olmstead and his daughter were
forced up another rope ladder at atomic pistol point.

Its passengers securely inside, the jet-copter rose a hundred feet
above the platform on its flashing, clattering rotors. Then the jets
were cut in and the craft streaked north from Syrtis Major City at
supersonic speed.




                              CHAPTER II


"Lies," General Olmstead said bitterly. "Don't tell me anything. It's
all lies."

"I swear I knew nothing about this," Alan insisted.

"Do you realize what you've done? Thousands of innocent people must
have died already in the atomic explosions on the Outworlds. Millions
more will perish before this war comes to an end. For it's war you've
brought to the solar system, Alan Tremaine. Is that what your father
would have wanted?"

"I brought nothing," Alan said. "I don't know what my father would have
wanted."

"I believe him, Dad," Laura Olmstead said. Alan had met her for
the first time two weeks ago on the spaceship from Earth. She was
going to join her father on Mars for the Declaration of Sovereignty
ceremony. Alan had struck up a quick friendship with her in his darkest
moments--when the death of his father had seemed so tragic, bringing
Alan's world tumbling down about him. Laura Olmstead's understanding,
her frank sympathy, then her cheerful talk and companionship as the
two week space journey wore on, had done much to help Alan. They had
parted at the Syrtis Major space-port, to meet again three days later
as revolution unexpectedly engulfed Mars and the other Outworlds.

"Alan Tremaine is a traitor to Earth and his own people as well,"
General Olmstead told his daughter now. "I won't hear anything more
about it."

Half a dozen militiamen sat about the cabin of the jet-copter with
them. Up front, a pilot and a co-pilot were at the controls.

"Alan's new on Mars, Dad. He's been at school on Earth, remember that."

The leader of the militiamen turned to Alan and said, "We're
approaching Red Sands now, sir. Do you wish to go right down or look
over the fortifications from the air?"

"Red Sands?" Alan asked. "What's that?"

"Operation Headquarters, sir. Your lieutenants are waiting for you to
take charge of the revolution, sir."

"So he's new on Mars," General Olmstead told his daughter. "So he
doesn't know a thing about this. He's running the whole show, Laura.
He's got us for hostages, too, or didn't you realize it? Earth will
think twice about attacking Federation Headquarters with us prisoner
there."

Alan was going to tell General Olmstead and his daughter they wouldn't
remain hostages long if he could help it, but the militiaman was
waiting for his answer. He said, "Let's go right down. Who's in charge
of the Headquarters, soldier?"

"Why, you are, sir."

"No. I mean right now."

"Bennett Keifer, sir. Your father's right-hand man."

"Let's go down and meet this Bennett Keifer," Alan said. And, to Laura:
"Don't worry about anything, Laura. It's going to be all right."

But when he reached for her hand, she withdrew it and would not meet
his eyes directly.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was nothing but the ochre wastelands of Mars, the dunes marching,
windswept, from horizon to horizon. Far away to the east, a thin green
line knifed across the rusty sands where vegetation clung precariously
to the banks of a Martian canal, nurtured by the waters it brought down
from the melting polar cap.

The militiamen flanked them on either side as they walked across the
desert, two uniformed figures remaining behind long enough to cover
the jet-copter with an ochre-colored tarpaulin which would effectively
camouflage it from the air. It was like something from the Arabian
Nights, Alan thought as they approached a low, rocky escarpment
thrusting up through the sand. The leader of the militiamen placed his
hand against a polished spot on the surface of the rock, which pulsed
with the contact as a hidden device checked the pattern and whorls of
the militiaman's fingerprints. The effect was the same as the Open
Sesame of the Arabian Nights, for a great slab-like section of the
escarpment rolled ponderously aside, revealing a dark cavity.

"Red Sands," the militiaman said proudly, and led the way inside.

Alan was totally unprepared for what happened next. The door in the
rock rolled shut behind them. Lights blazed inside the cavern, brighter
than the pale Martian day. A throbbing, busy city was spread out before
them below the surface of Mars.

Throngs of men, women and children lined the short road to the city
on both sides. A great cry went up from them as Alan, the militiamen,
General Olmstead and his daughter approached.

"Hail, Tremaine!" The cry echoed from the rock walls of the underground
city. "Hail, Tremaine!" It rolled from the far throbbing reaches of the
bustling city. "Tremaine, Tremaine, Tremaine!"

_Not for me_, Alan thought. _For my father._ What actually did he know
about all this? Perhaps a revolution directed from the secret base here
at Red Sands _had_ been his father's secret dream. The adulation with
which the people of Red Sands greeted him filled him with a sense of
pride. Not for his own accomplishments, but for his father's. Laura
Olmstead was, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, part of a different
world. Alan shrugged, deciding to suspend judgment until he met and
talked with Bennett Keifer.

Now there were cries of: "He looks like his father!" "See, the same
brow, the same bearing!" "The eyes are the same, I tell you. We have
Richard Tremaine with us all over again!" And always, from all sides:
"Hail, Tremaine!"

Alan caught Laura's gaze and tried to smile at her. She was on
the verge of tears. "The sycophantic hypocrites," she said. "It's
disgusting, carrying on like this while people are dying all over the
solar system."

"It isn't for me," Alan told her desperately. "It's in memory of my
father."

Laura's eyelids squeezed shut. Tears on her cheeks, she walked blindly
ahead, supported by her father's arm. "I hate you, Alan Tremaine," she
said.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Tremaine," Bennett Keifer said half an hour later, shaking his hand
with vigorous enthusiasm. "You look so much like your dead father I
could have picked you out of any crowd. Sit down, boy."

Alan shook his head. "Thanks, but I'll stand." General Olmstead and his
daughter had been left off elsewhere while Alan had been ushered into
the Administration Center of Red Sands, a great rectangular structure
carved from the subterranean rock of Mars. Finally, he had stood face
to face with Bennett Keifer. A big, handsome man in the uniform of a
Federation colonel, Keifer had flashing eyes and a direct manner which
Alan found disarming.

"I'm sure you have many questions," Keifer said.

"Just one. Did my father sanction this armed revolt?"

"What a strange question. Of course he did."

"Nobody told me before."

"We couldn't reveal it today, Tremaine. Not even to you. We couldn't
chance revealing it until our forces had moved on all the Outworlds."

"In his letters, my father always said the glorious thing about the
Outworld Federation was how it had achieved its ends bloodlessly."

"Tremaine, I'm telling you. I was here. They brought your father
here after he was shot. He died with me at his side. He died saying
that the Earth government was trying to trick us. Equal Union was a
farce, he said. Equal Union--with Earth bleeding the Outworlds dry
of their resources! Don't you see, Tremaine? Earth needs our mineral
wealth--heavy water from Venus, iron from Mars, lithium and cobalt
from the Jovian moons and Titan. They'll bleed us dry and pay next to
nothing for our mineral wealth. Since theirs is the only market, we
have no choice. The only alternative was armed revolt for the full
freedom Earth wouldn't grant us."

"But in Equal Union we had an equal, representative vote for the first
time. This Earth granted us."

"Representative vote, Tremaine. There's the catch. There are ten people
on Earth for every Outworlder. What kind of equality is that?"

"I don't know," Alan admitted. "I think my father would have--"

"I'm telling you what your father said. I was there. Why don't you do
this, Tremaine: get acquainted with our city. I don't want to rush you.
When you're ready to take over and make the decisions, I'll step aside.
How does that sound?"

"I don't want to usurp your authority just because my name's Tremaine,"
Alan said. "I don't understand this, not yet. I'm going to try,
though." He was suddenly weary. It was the same feeling he had when
news of his father's death had reached him on Earth. The world tumbling
down about his shoulders. Atlas trying to hold up the globe but shorn
of all his strength.

He said, "Is there someplace I can go to clean up? My head feels like
it's spinning."

"Someplace to go," Keifer repeated the words, smiling. "Your father's
apartment here in Red Sands is yours. I'll have one of our enlisted men
show you the way. And take your time about things, Tremaine. No one is
rushing you."

Alan thanked him and said, "What about General Olmstead and his
daughter?"

"Don't you worry. Naturally, they're prisoners of war. But they'll be
well-cared-for here. We're civilized people, Tremaine."

       *       *       *       *       *

They shook hands again, then Alan followed a militiaman outside,
through the corridors of Red Sands to a large apartment quarried in the
rock wall of the underground city. He dismissed the enlisted man and
found a bent, elderly figure waiting for him inside.

The man had gray hair and thin, stooped shoulders--as if he had spent
the better part of his life pouring over books. He spoke in a thin,
reedy voice, choked with emotion. "Is any one waiting for you outside?"
he inquired.

Alan shook his head.

"Then listen to me. I shouldn't be here. If Keifer knew--" the elderly
man shrugged "--I don't know what might happen. Alan, I am Eugene
Talbrick. Does the name mean anything to you?"

"Yes," Alan nodded. "My father wrote about you often. He said you were
always a pillar of strength to him, a...."

"No matter," said Talbrick. "You have heard of me. Alan, the good name
of Tremaine is being used to bathe the solar system in blood!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Keifer. He _says_ your father secretly wanted armed revolt. It's not
true, Alan. And do you realize what Keifer plans to make of you?"

Alan frowned. Eugene Talbrick, his father had always written, was an
inspirational figure behind everything the Outworld Federation stood
for. If Richard Tremaine had been the eloquent spokesman for freedom,
Talbrick was the thinker. If Tremaine could be compared to Washington
historically, then surely Talbrick could be compared to an older Thomas
Jefferson, or Ben Franklin perhaps. "No," Alan said. "I've only just
met Keifer."

"You'll be a figurehead, Alan. Listen."

Talbrick walked to a television screen on the wall and soon had it
working. A grave-faced news commentator was saying, "... riots all
over Syrtis Major City. The magic name of Tremaine is on everyone's
lips, Richard the father, Alan the son. If Richard Tremaine had not
sanctioned this revolution, the people say, their forces never would
have struck all over the solar system. If Alan Tremaine was not here
to lead them, they might have accepted the Declaration of Sovereignty.
But with the memory of one Tremaine and the leadership of another, they
will fight now for total freedom.

"Elsewhere on the revolution front, search jets are sweeping wide over
the Martian desert for some trace of Governor General Olmstead, who was
kidnapped by Federation forces along with his daughter. Up to this
moment, no trace of them has been found....

"Here's a bulletin from Earth. Government warships have been dispatched
to Venus, Titan and the Jovian Moons to put down the provisional
Federation governments which have risen there. Heavy casualties on both
sides are feared."

Talbrick blanked the television screen. "Believe me, Alan," he said.
"Civilization may depend on your decision. Your father never sanctioned
this armed uprising. Keifer lied. Keifer dreams of an independent
Federation which can drive Earth to its knees economically. Or worse.
You're to be in command, but he'll pull the strings behind you."

Alan paced back and forth without speaking. He hardly could believe
Talbrick any more than he could believe Keifer. The one had been behind
his father, offering strength from deep, philosophical wisdom. The
other had been beside Richard Tremaine in all his stormy political
fights.

Alan smiled without humor. "Charge and counter charge," he said. "My
ears will probably be ringing with them. Do you have any proof?"

"Yes," said Eugene Talbrick. "A letter from your father to you. It's
in my own quarters now. I wouldn't mail it for fear it would be
intercepted on its way to Earth."

"A letter?"

"He knew it was the end. He knew he was dying. He wrote the letter and
gave it to me because he had seen through Keifer too late. Will you
come with me now?"

"Of course," Alan said, and followed the old man from his father's
apartment.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Here we are," Eugene Talbrick told him a few minutes later. He opened
the door to his own quarters and stepped inside. Alan followed him into
darkness, heard the old man groping ahead of him for the switch which
would fill the windowless, rock-hewn apartment with light.

The door clicked shut behind them.

"That's funny," Talbrick's reedy voice was close at hand. "The light
doesn't work."

There was a soft series of repeated thuds, someone moving across the
carpet quickly.

"Who's there?" Eugene Talbrick called.

"Look out!" Alan cried, suddenly wary. He brushed past the old man and
collided with someone there in the darkness. Briefly, they struggled,
then something struck the side of Alan's head. He fell to his knees,
groping blindly ahead. His arms wrapped about a pair of legs, clung
there grimly. Something lashed out at his chest, spilling him over on
his back.

"Alan, where are you?" Eugene Talbrick said. "What's the matter?" Then
Eugene Talbrick screamed once and was still. A weight fell across Alan,
pinning him to the floor. Half-conscious, he rolled the heavy thing off
him and scrambled unsteadily to his hands and knees. The door opened
and closed swiftly, light from the corridor streaming in, then fading.
Alan staggered to the door, opened it.

Outside in the corridor, there was no one.

Inside, the slender form of Eugene Talbrick was stretched out on its
back. A red pool of blood was spreading on the carpet under him. Alan
knew he was dead without feeling for the pulse.

A knife had been plunged into Eugene Talbrick's side, immediately below
the heart.




                              CHAPTER III


"Now, just a minute, Alan," Bennett Keifer said later. "Before you go
off half-cocked like that--"

"Eugene made some accusations, then died," Alan insisted, "before he
could show me the proof."

"We're all grownups here, Alan," Keifer said easily. There was no
mistaking his tone. He would _assume_ Alan was a grownup. "You're
twenty-five," he went on. "One day soon you'll take over the Federation
movement, so you can't afford to be impetuous. You tried to find that
letter, didn't you?"

"Yes," Alan admitted. "It wasn't there."

"Of course it wasn't. It never existed. Alan, listen to me. Talbrick
was an old man. Our viewpoints differed diametrically. He couldn't
reconcile himself with the fact that your father agreed with me."

"But--"

"But that isn't important. This is. Someone, some unknown person,
killed your father. Someone killed Talbrick. Richard Tremaine, then
Talbrick. I'm next in line, Alan. Or maybe you are. Someone is out to
wreck the Federation from the inside, by killing off its leaders."

"If what you say is true, why didn't they finish the job in Talbrick's
apartment? They could have killed me, too."

"You frightened them off."

"I'll be frank," Alan said coolly. "Let's assume _you_ were
responsible. You couldn't afford to kill me. You need me for a
figurehead."

Keifer smiled. "I should be angry. I'm not." He flipped the intercom
toggle on his desk and said, "Haddix, come in here, please."

The door opened. A tall, gangling man in the uniform of a Federation
captain entered the room. He moved with easy, feline grace. When he
spoke, he purred like a great cat. "Yes, sir?" he said saluting Keifer.
"You sent for me?"

"Alan, this is Captain Haddix, the Internal Security Officer here at
Red Sands. Captain, will you tell Mr. Tremaine where I was for the past
three hours?"

"Right here, sir. You had a brief interview with this man, then
remained here with me, discussing the water ultimatum."

"You see?" Keifer said. "Right here."

Perhaps he had jumped to an unwarranted conclusion, Alan thought. He
said, "What is this water ultimatum?"

Keifer dismissed the Internal Security Officer, then explained, "We're
in trouble, Alan. An hour ago, the Earth colonial office contacted us
with an ultimatum. Either we lay down our arms and tell the provisional
governments on the other Outworlds to surrender their authority, or
Mars' water supply is cut off. We were given one hour."

"But Earth's own military forces here on Mars would die of thirst."

Keifer shrugged. "Apparently they're expendable. Of course, I rejected
the ultimatum."

"What can you do?"

"I don't know," Keifer said. "They can do what they say, unfortunately."

It would be simple, Alan knew. Arid Mars had depended for water which
flowed in an adequate trickle from the polar caps until the coming of
the Earth colony. For the past twenty years, though, water-surplus
Venus supplied Mars with its water. A warp had been opened in space
from the Venusian orbit to the Martian, with life-giving water flowing
through from the second planet to the fourth at the rate of fifty
thousand gallons per second. It had been a stupendous sub-space
engineering feat, for the warp varied in length from sixty to two
hundred million miles, depending upon the orbital positions of the two
planets. Earth could shut the warp at any point along its vast length.
Parched, arid Mars would be forced to lay down its arms in a matter of
days.

"Captain Haddix is taking a ship along the warp-route," Keifer said,
"assuming the ultimatum is in earnest. He might be able to find the
break, but I doubt if he could repair it. Would you care to go along?"

"Yes," Alan said. He still didn't believe Earth would subject millions
of people, its own military garrison included, to killing thirst.

"Very well. I--"

At that moment, a buzzer sounded on Keifer's desk. "Yes, what is it?"

The voice was frantic. "This is the reservoir, sir. The water's stopped
flowing. The warp is closed!"

"We'll ration what we have left," Keifer said grimly. "Two quarts per
person, effective immediately." Then, to Alan: "I'll make arrangements
for you with Captain Haddix. They weren't fooling, Alan. They gave us
exactly one hour."

Alan met Captain Haddix outside, where plans were made for their flight
to the space-warp route. If Earth did this, Alan thought bleakly, then
maybe Keifer was right. For Earth would thereby condemn itself in the
eyes of the Outworlds with such blatant disregard for human life.

       *       *       *       *       *

"They haven't touched us so far, Dad," Laura Olmstead told her father.
"Alan won't let them."

"We're prisoners in this room. But I think Alan's a prisoner, too. Up
here." General Olmstead tapped his head. "They've got the boy fooled,
Laura, if what you told me is the truth."

"I'm sure it is. I'm sure Alan wouldn't have betrayed his own father
like that. You've got to trust him, Dad."

General Olmstead grunted. "We don't have any choice, do we?"

Laura was thinking: _Please, Alan. Please. They've got you confused.
You didn't do this intentionally. Please._

The door to their prison chamber suddenly slid, with much grating and
creaking, into the wall. A tall, distinguished-looking man in the
uniform of a Federation colonel came into the room. "I am Colonel
Bennett Keifer," he introduced himself, "second in command to Alan
Tremaine here at Red Sands. How do you do, Mr. Olmstead?"

"_General_ Olmstead," Laura's father said coldly.

"We recognize no Earth titles here in Red Sands, Mr. Olmstead. We
recognize your importance, though."

"Exactly what does that mean?"

"There are certain things Alan Tremaine would like to find out.
The strength of the Earth garrison at Syrtis Major, the number
of jet-copters at your disposal, your plans for putting down the
insurrections at the smaller Martian settlements."

"You'll get nothing from me," General Olmstead promised.

"Perhaps. Your daughter is a lovely woman, Mr. Olmstead. Quite lovely."

"If you as much as touch her, I'll kill you with my own hands!"

"Theatrics, Mr. Olmstead. You are in no position to do anything of the
sort. You can save us both a lot of trouble if you answer my questions."

"Get out of here," General Olmstead said.

Shrugging, Keifer called over his shoulder: "Guard!"

Two strapping figures entered the chamber and waited for orders.

"Take Mr. Olmstead to another room, please. I wish you were more
reasonable, Mr. Olmstead. We need that information badly."

       *       *       *       *       *

Struggling and cursing, General Olmstead was borne from the room.
"Don't worry about me," Laura called after him. "We both have a duty to
Earth."

"This is ironic," Keifer said after the door had closed. "I had planned
it thoroughly. We have men here who are experts in an art which was old
when civilization was young."

"Torture?" Laura said. "My father won't--"

"I said it's ironic. I never expected you, Laura. The General has a
daughter, a common, ordinary girl. He loves her. He sees things in her
no one else does. But you--you are beautiful. Listen to me, Laura. Your
father is an experienced professional soldier. We can use him here in
Red Sands. If we make an alliance, the Federation could hold all of
Mars in a week."

"What kind of alliance?"

"There are few women in Red Sands," said Keifer. "None of them as
pretty as you. I'm restless, Laura. That kind of alliance." Quite
objectively, he let his eyes study her slowly, starting at the top
of her head and working down without passion, without hurry. When he
finished, she was blushing. "Exactly that kind of an alliance," he said.

"You're crazy if you think I--"

"Your father expects the worst. He thinks we're going to hurt you.
We're not. We're going to hurt him.

"Plans can change. Your father will be tortured, while you are sitting
here with me. We can break a man, Laura, physically and mentally. We
can make him talk. Or--you can save us the trouble."

"How?"

"By telling your father you believe this is the winning side. By
telling him you're going to live with me."

"To--what?"

"To live with me."

"I wouldn't marry you if--"

"My dear young lady. I never said anything about marriage. Perhaps
later, I don't know. I'm a cautious man. You're still an unknown
quantity, you see."

"You can just get out of here."

"As you wish. But let me tell you something: here in Red Sands we're
subtle when we have to be, crude when we must. Now, take your father.
There are ways of hurting a man, of pulling out his fingernails slowly,
of applying pressure to certain nerves at the base of the skull, of
a slow, steady pounding of the soles of the feet, of breaking bones,
starting with the toes and--"

"That's enough!" Laura cried. "Don't say any more."

Keifer shrugged. "Also as you wish. Your father will not be harmed, I
promise you. Tonight, you may come to my quarters if you wish. If you
don't my promise will no longer be valid. In a day or two, perhaps we
can tell your father of our alliance. Will I see you tonight?"

"Yes," Laura said. "Just get out of here now."

"Tonight," Keifer told her, and left the room.




                              CHAPTER IV


"This is Colonel Keifer calling warp-ship seven. Come in please."

"Warp seven, sir?"

"Captain Haddix?"

"A moment, sir."

Keifer waited impatiently, then saw Haddix's gaunt face on the
viewscreen. "Where are you now, Haddix?"

"Starting out along the warp-route, sir. Has there been a change in
plans?"

"Yes. I want you to return tonight, Captain Haddix. Without Alan
Tremaine."

"But I thought--"

"Don't. We still need Tremaine's name, but the boy is suspicious. No
one has to know he has been killed. This is one case where we want the
name but _not_ the game. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"One more thing, Captain. How would you like to attain your majority?"

"Yes, _sir_!" Haddix beamed.

"Good. Return tonight without Tremaine and you'll be promoted. Good
luck, Captain."

       *       *       *       *       *

Alan felt awkward in the cumbersome spacesuit, clomping along the hull
of warp-ship seven with Captain Haddix. Ahead of him, Haddix looked
like some grotesque monster in the shapeless, inflated suit. But Haddix
had learned to slide his feet along in their magnet-shod boots and
could move with comparative ease.

"There's the warp-station," Haddix called over the suit intercom,
pointing with one gauntleted hand toward a black globe which obscured
the starlight overhead. From the globe, an incredibly straight black
line darted out across the gulf of space like a bridge to infinity.
From here it seemed only inches thick, but Alan knew it was actually
fifty feet across.

"That's the warp," Haddix said. "It bends space as if space were a
sheet of paper with Venus at one corner and Mars at another. You fold
the sheet of paper across to place Venus and Mars in juxtaposition.
In the same way, this warp folds space, aligning Venus and Mars in
sub-space."

"Why can't men travel the same way?" Alan asked. "It's almost
instantaneous, isn't it? It takes almost a month by spaceship from Mars
to Venus."

Haddix's laughter purred over the intercom. "Uh-uh," he said. "The
stresses in a space-warp are tremendous. Water has no shape to lose,
so it doesn't matter. A man would be mangled. Well, are you ready, Mr.
Tremaine?"

"I guess so."

"Fine. Just point yourself in the direction of the warp-station,
unmagnetize your boots and switch on your shoulder jets. Once you get
the hang of it, it's a cinch. Here we go."

Ahead of him, Alan saw Haddix's form suddenly lift from the hull of the
spaceship and rocket up toward the warp-station. Alan followed him,
feeling utterly no sensation of movement after the initial acceleration.

       *       *       *       *       *

A featureless black globe several hundred yards in diameter, the warp
station floated toward them. Following Haddix's lead, Alan alighted on
his hands, cutting his shoulder jets and cart-wheeling into an upright
position. The warp-station, he knew, was merely a terminal point for
the space-warp itself. Untended, it housed the tremendous atomic power
plant which unfolded the water on the Martian end of the warp from
sub-space to normal space.

"As you can see," Haddix said, "the station is working. But there's no
water."

Alan could feel the pulsing of great machinery underfoot. But the black
tube of sub-space, yawning awesomely half a hundred feet to his left,
was empty.

"Want to take a look?" Haddix demanded.

Alan nodded through the glassite helmet of his space suit, then fell
into dragging, magnetized step beside Haddix. Soon they approached the
lip of the sub-space tube, where sub-space intersected normal space in
a fifty foot wide channel.

"It doesn't look dangerous," Alan said.

"For water, it's not. The pressure would crush a man to jelly."

Alan peered over the edge. Below him perhaps a dozen feet, a white line
had been painted. Over it in stark white letters was the word CAUTION.
Beyond that point, apparently, the actual space-warp began. "Look out!"
Alan shouted. "What are you trying to do?"

Haddix was leaning against him, their two bulky suits in sudden,
dangerous contact. Alan could feel himself slipping over the edge.
Yelling now, his own voice deafening him inside the glassite helmet,
Alan groped with clumsy, gauntletted hands for Haddix. He clutched the
shoulder of the man's spacesuit, then felt himself tumbling over the
edge into the tube.

There was a jolting sensation above him. He was sliding down the
inflated body of Haddix's spacesuit, sliding, sliding. He wrapped his
arms about the legs of the suit and clung there. Below his dangling
feet was the white line and the word CAUTION painted there. Immediately
below that, the space-warp itself.

"Let go of me!" Haddix screamed. "You'll kill us both."

Alan looked up. Haddix was clinging to the lip of the tube with both
hands. Suddenly, Haddix began rocking back and forth in an attempt to
dislodge Alan.

"Don't try it," Alan said. "All I've got to do is yank at your legs a
little harder and we'll both fall down there."

"I can't climb up with you hanging on like that. I--I can't hold on
much longer. This warp-station's at Earth normal gravity, Tremaine. My
hands are slipping!"

"Listen to me," Alan said. "We can still get out of this. I can climb
up your back, then pull you up after me."

"How do I know you will?"

"You don't. If we just hang here, we're as good as dead." Alan could
feel the strain in his arms as he clung to Haddix's suit. For Haddix,
the strain was double. Haddix could not be expected to hang there more
than a few moments.

"I'm coming up," Alan said. "Don't try anything foolish."

       *       *       *       *       *

Hanging by one arm, Alan reached up with his other hand and grasped
the belt of Haddix's suit. Suspended there by both arms now, he reached
up again for the flange of metal at the neck of Haddix's suit, where
the glassite helmet fit. He got the gauntletted fingers of one hand
around it, then almost lost his precarious grip. He swung sickeningly
over the abyss for one harrowing moment, then held the flange with both
hands. Taking a deep breath, he reached for the lip of the tube itself
and soon clambered up and over. He lay there briefly, panting. He had
never been nearer death in his life.

"Help!" Haddix gasped. "I can't hold on much longer."

Alan crouched there, looked over the edge. Haddix still clung with both
hands.

"Why did you try to kill me?" Alan demanded. "Did you kill my father
and Eugene Talbrick too?"

"It was Keifer!" Haddix cried. "Keifer thought you were suspicious. He
was going to get you out of the way and keep using your name."

"Did he kill my father?"

"I don't know. Honest."

"And Talbrick?"

"One of my men did it. At Keifer's orders. Get me out of here, I'm
begging you."

"O.K.," Alan said. He braced himself and hauled Haddix up out of the
tube, then turned and jetted back toward the waiting warp-ship. They
entered the airlock together, waited for the green safety light which
announced the return of normal pressure and air, then stripped off
their deflated spacesuits and glassite helmets.

Cat-quick, Haddix yanked an atomic pistol from his belt.

Instinctively, matching reflex for reflex, Alan slapped it from his
hand. The weapon roared, blasting the air over Alan's head as he dove
for Haddix. They went down together, rolling across the floor. Alan was
aware of Haddix shouting for help, of the man's long fingers closing on
his throat, of a knee driven painfully into his groin.

The inner lock door swung open. The warp-ship's pilot crashed through
and scrambled on the floor after the atomic pistol. "Get out of the
way, Captain," he said. "I've got him covered."

But Haddix was a growling, choking, feline animal now, trying to
squeeze the life from Alan's throat. Desperately, Alan groped blindly
with his fingers. His thumbs found Haddix's eyes, gouging. Haddix
screamed and tumbled clear, clawing at his face.

Alan sucked air into his lungs and sprang to his feet as the atomic
pistol was discharged. He felt a sudden, burning numbness in his left
arm, then was grappling with the pilot chest to chest, the atomic
pistol between them. When the weapon went off, Alan was flung across
the airlock, slamming against the wall. The pilot went down to his
knees slowly, disbelief on his face as he died trying to stuff entrails
back into his belly.

Haddix and Alan went for the atomic pistol at the same time. The
Security Officer got his fingers around it and turned, snarling, toward
Alan.

"All right, you no good son--" he began.

Alan stepped on his wrist, pinning it on the floor with the weapon. He
kicked Haddix in the face with his other foot and retrieved the atomic
pistol as Haddix slumped forward.

"Now listen," Alan said, breathing in great sobs, "we're going forward.
You'll call Keifer and tell him I'm dead. Try anything else and I'll
kill you. Understand?"

Haddix understood.

Alan followed him, stuffing his numb left hand into a pocket of his
blouse as a temporary sling. By the time they reached the control
cabin, the left side of his blouse was soaked with blood.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Good dinner, wasn't it?" Bennett Keifer asked Laura.

"Yes," she said.

"Did you like the wine?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad you decided to accept my invitation. Are you?"

"Yes."

"Is that all you have to say, 'yes'?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Come here, Laura."

_Dad_, she thought. _It's for you. Alan, Alan, where are you?_ She
walked to where Keifer was sitting.

"Sit down, Laura."

She sat.

"You still don't like me," he said, as if it were both regretted and
unexpected. "But you're all alone now. I've given you the opportunity
to start a new life here with me. Your father can't help you. And Alan
Tremaine--"

"What about Alan?" Laura asked eagerly.

"I want ours to be a frank relationship. No lies. No deceits. Alan
Tremaine is dead."

"What--what did you say?" Laura cried.

"Tremaine is dead. I got word this afternoon. An accident at the
warp-station."

"It isn't true," Laura whispered. "It cant be true. Please. Please...."

"Listen to me, Laura. I'm going to win. I can't be stopped now. I'm
offering you half, a woman's share of empire. Not just the Outworlds.
I believe I can force Earth itself to its knees."

_Alan, Alan, forgive me. I said I hated you...._

"It isn't madness, Laura. With Tremaine's name and my plans, the
Outworlds will rally behind me. And after they hear how Earth has
sundered the space-warp from Venus--"

"Earth wouldn't," Laura said mechanically.

"It's on every Martian's lips," Keifer said.

"Then you did it yourself."

"Laura, Laura. I said a woman's share of empire. Don't worry yourself
over the details. Wealth and jewels and importance, that's a woman's
share. It's yours if you want it."

"My father--"

"Is a prisoner. Will you come here now?"

Laura looked at him, at this man who would carve a solar empire for
himself by twisting the legitimate motives of the Outworld people.
_It's for Dad_, she thought. She tried to fill her mind with that and
nothing else. For her father. Otherwise, he would be tortured. For her
father. For her father....

But when Keifer smiled down on her, calmly sure of himself, she thought
of other things, of Earth, which did not yet understand the full extent
of Keifer's madness, of Alan, who had been slain treacherously....

"That's for my father!" she cried, and slapped Keifer's face.

He caught her hands, pinning them at her side. "You little vixen," he
said. The imprint of her fingers was on his cheek. There was quick
hatred in his eyes, but lust as well. "Why don't you cry for help?" he
taunted her. "My guards will hear you."

Laura freed one of her hands and slapped him again, then watched as
rage swept the lust from his eyes. "I'll break you," he promised,
biting off the words one at a time. "You'll come crawling." He forced
her down slowly on the couch.

They both looked up as the door to the room slid noisily into the wall.

Alan stood there.




                               CHAPTER V


"Get up," Alan said, jerking the atomic pistol from his belt.

"But Haddix said--"

"Your guards welcomed me, Keifer. You couldn't afford to tell anyone
else I was dead. Laura, are you all right?"

"Yes, Alan. I thought you ... he said...."

"We're getting out of here. Keifer, call your guards. Tell them to
bring General Olmstead here. If you try any tricks, I'll kill you."
Alan's head was whirling. He'd lost too much blood, he thought vaguely.
There were two Laura's and two Keifer's swimming before his eyes.

"You can't desert your own people," Keifer told him. "You don't like my
policies, but--"

"Shut up. You told Haddix to kill me. One of Haddix's men killed Eugene
Talbrick, at your orders."

"I--"

Alan jammed the atomic pistol against Keifer's chest. "One question,"
he said. "I want the truth. Who cut off the space-warp?"

"Earth--"

"I'm going to Earth to find out. I just want to know where I stand,
that's all."

Keifer shrugged. "We did it, Alan. The Federation."

"You mean _you_ did it. But why?"

Keifer remained stonily silent.

Abruptly, Alan found himself down on one knee. It took an incredible
effort of will to stand up again. He needed a blood transfusion and
could sleep around the clock and still wake up exhausted. Laura ran
to him and said, "You're badly hurt, Alan. You ought to have that
treated."

He smiled bleakly. "Tell me how?" he said, and handed her the pistol.
"If Keifer does anything except send for your father, use this." He
staggered to the couch and sat there, letting his head slump forward
and down almost to his knees to renew the flow of blood to his brain.
Dimly, he was aware of Keifer crossing the room to a video screen and
asking someone at the other end to bring General Olmstead--Keifer said
_Mr._ Olmstead--to his quarters.

Then there was a roaring in Alan's ears, the distant, far off pounding
of surf on a water world like Venus, not arid Mars. It came closer, it
swept down upon Alan in a surging, foaming tide and engulfed him....

       *       *       *       *       *

"Alan! Alan! Dad is here."

"Laura." He blinked his eyes. Groggy, he stood up. Laura was on one
side of him, General Olmstead on the other, pointing the atomic pistol
squarely at Bennett Keifer.

"Just how do you expect to get out of here?" Keifer demanded.

"That's easy," Alan said. "You are coming with us."

"To Earth? You'll never make me."

"Get this straight," Alan said. "I could walk clear across Red Sands
without anyone trying to stop me. I'm Alan Tremaine, remember? But
we're going to do it the hard way because I want to turn you over to
the authorities on Earth. Let's go."

Outside in the corridor, a few guards were loitering. They came to
attention and saluted smartly as Keifer and Alan Tremaine came into
view with General Olmstead and his daughter. They never suspected that
General Olmstead held a pistol, hidden by the folds of his tunic, at
Keifer's back.

General Olmstead told Alan as they followed the narrow corridor to a
larger one, "My place is with the defenders of Red Sands. I wouldn't
feel right going to Earth with you."

"We're taking the warp-ship," Alan said. "It's not really built for
interplanetary travel, but it will have to do. We could drop you at
Syrtis. But sir, I'd rather take Laura with me. Let's get her safely
out of this war."

"Wait a minute!" Laura cried. "If you think--"

"I do," her father said, "and so does Alan. You'll go to Earth with
him. He needs someone along to help watch Keifer, anyhow."

"But Dad!"

"But nothing."

"Alan, I want to go with you, but--"

"You heard your father. But nothing."

Fifteen minutes later, they were putting on insulined surface garments
at the quartermaster supply depot near the great stone portal which
separated Red Sands from the Martian desert.

The clerk said, "Going up to the warp-station?"

"No," Bennett Keifer told him.

"Yes," Alan said.

The clerk scratched his head, but saluted as they marched toward the
stone portal. "Open it," Alan told him.

The portal slid away. The fierce Martian wind blasted them with
swirling, choking sand. The intense cold cleared Alan's head. Five
hundred yards across the ochre sand, they could see the black bulk of
the warp-ship. The portal groaned and scraped shut behind them. You
could see nothing but a bare escarpment of Martian granite.

"Haddix is tied up in the ship," Alan shouted over the shrieking wind.
"We'll put him outside, then blast off."

Now the warp-ship loomed over them, balanced black and ugly on its
tail. Alan worked the airlock mechanism with numb fingers. The lock
swung in.

Haddix was there, all right. Haddix stood in the airlock with another
uniformed figure on either side of him.

Haddix was pointing an atomic pistol out at them.

       *       *       *       *       *

"He left me here," Haddix told Keifer. "I got loose and called for
help. I figured he was planning to use the ship again or he would have
taken me out with him. So we waited right here. Smart, huh?"

"That was ingenious, _Major_ Haddix," Keifer agreed.

Haddix climbed out of the airlock and stood with them on the ochre
sand. His two men emerged behind him with coils of rope. "Sit down,"
Haddix said. "A trick I learned on Venus. We'll tie them back to back."

Nodding, Keifer asked General Olmstead for his weapon.

Alan crouched, facing Haddix. Once they were tied, they were as good
as dead. Rallying the Outworld people behind Alan's name, Keifer would
certainly dominate the Federation planets and might even go further.
Haddix stood there warily, feet planted wide apart, ready for anything.
It hardly seemed a calculated risk, Alan thought. It seemed like
suicide.

But there was nothing else he could do.

He scooped up a handful of sand and flung it in Haddix's face, leaping
for the Security Officer with the same motion. Then several things
happened at once. Laura screamed. Keifer was grappling with General
Olmstead, fighting a grim tug of war with him for the pistol. Haddix's
weapon blasted air just above Alan's face, the searing flash of energy
momentarily blinding him. Alan hit Haddix low with his shoulder,
striking the man's knees, he thought. Haddix tumbled over on top of
him, flattening Alan against the sand.

Alan got two handfuls of sand, then drove his fists at Haddix's face
and opened them, rubbing the sand into his eyes. Haddix screamed like
an animal in sudden, unexpected pain. There was a sudden wet warmth
on Alan's left arm as the wound opened and began bleeding again, but
Haddix had fallen away from him and Alan's energy-blinded eyes were
beginning to make out shapes again.

He found Haddix's weapon in his hand as the two soldiers charged down
upon him. He fired once and blasted a hole in the first one's chest.
Haddix was scrambling over the sand toward him, groping blindly,
cursing. The second soldier swung his coil of rope like a flail,
whipping it down across Alan's face. He felt blood flowing in a quick
torrent from his nose. He held the atomic pistol in both hands as the
soldier lifted the rope overhead again. The second blast of energy
from Alan's weapon decapitated the soldier. The head tumbled away. The
body took two steps toward Alan as if it could not believe this had
happened, then pitched forward on the sand, staining the ochre with a
deeper red.

Alan gagged but did not have time to be sick. He stood up and saw
Haddix fleeing toward the escarpment which hid Red Sands. He fired
once, but the range was too great, the wind too strong. Keifer and
Laura were fighting for the second atomic pistol, Laura kicking him,
raking his face with her fingernails and keeping him away from General
Olmstead, who lay motionless on the sand. Keifer struck her brutally
across the jaw with his fist, then turned, fired once in Alan's
direction without aiming, and sprinted toward the escarpment.

Laura was unconscious. General Olmstead was unconscious or dead. Alan's
limbs were like water. He knew Keifer would bring help. He had perhaps
three minutes.

Somehow, he managed to drag Laura and her father inside the warp-ship.
He slammed the outer airlock door, closed the inner door, staggered
to the controls. Figures, tiny black dots against the barren ochre
wilderness, were running toward the ship when Alan took it up into
space under five G's acceleration.

Everything was going to be all right, he thought, and fainted.

       *       *       *       *       *

Something cool was stroking his forehead, bathing the caked blood from
his face. He was aware that his tunic and blouse had been removed,
aware of a clean white bandage on his arm. Laura's face swam in and out
of focus before him.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Laura did not answer.

He looked at the controls. Seventy five thousand miles out from Mars,
heading toward Earth. Present speed, thirty eight miles per second,
still increasing. He could feel the gentle acceleration pressure,
probably one and a half G's, tugging at him.

"Are we being followed?" he asked Laura.

"No. I don't know. Please. Please!"

"What's the matter?"

"Dad. He's--dead. Alan, Keifer killed him." Laura was crying silently,
her shoulder shaking with sobs, her eyelids closed tightly, the tears
streaming from them down her cheeks. "He's--dead...."

Alan stood up and walked to where he had dragged General Olmstead's
inert form. A hole in the General's tunic revealed the wound. There was
no pulse beat in his wrist.

First my father, Alan thought. First Richard Tremaine. Now General
Olmstead. They were on opposite sides, the one championing freedom
for the Outworlds, the other opposing it. But there had been nothing
violent about their disagreement. It had been a political battle, waged
in the arena of politics. And when Richard Tremaine had been granted
Equal Union for his people, General Olmstead had bowed graciously to
Earth's decision. Under other circumstances, they could have been
friends, Alan's dead father and Laura's.

Now they were dead.

Both struck down by Bennett Keifer.

Alan wondered if it were always that way. The bad people rising to the
top, like scum on water, employing treachery and violence to achieve
their ends.

"It will be more than a vendetta," he said out loud.

"What did you say?"

"I'm going to get Keifer. My whole life will stand still until I can
get him. Not because he killed them, not entirely for that. Because
of who he is and what he stands for and how he'll use treachery
and violence like this for his own ends. Because Equal Union and
parliamentary routine never satisfied a man like him and never will.
Because he can stop the flow of water to Mars and watch his own people
crying for water if it serves his purposes to incite them against
Earth. I'll get him, Laura. I promise you that."

He wrapped General Olmstead's body in an old Federation flag which he
found in a rear cabin of the warp-ship. "It isn't the globe and stars
of Earth," he said softly, "but it's the Federation my father stood
for, the real Federation."

Laura nodded. "Dad would have wanted it that way."

Alan carried his flag-draped burden to the airlock, placed it in the
chamber, then stepped back and bolted the inner door. Laura stood
silently for a moment with her head bowed while Alan recited what he
could remember of the 23rd Psalm. Somehow, it cleaned some of the
hatred from his system and left cold clear purpose in its place. The
prayer was for his father too and all the free people who had ever died
and would ever die fighting tyranny.

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear
no evil, for Thou are with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort
me...."

Alan pulled the lever which controlled the outer door of the airlock.
General Olmstead found his final resting place in the deep void of
space where he had spent most of his life in the service of his fellow
men.




                              CHAPTER VI


"Five hundred thousand miles out from Earth," Laura said, two weeks
later.

"I still don't get it," Alan admitted. "They didn't even try to follow
us. It's as if Keifer suddenly didn't care whether we escaped to Earth
or not."

"Maybe he believes we're going to have our hands full trying to get
Earth to repair the space-warp. Maybe he knows we won't be able to
bother him or interfere with his plans."

But Alan shook his head, his brow creasing into a frown. "No that's
not it. I just can't figure it." He walked to the fore viewport and
gazed at the legions of stars against the black velvet immensity of
space. In the upper right hand corner of the viewport he could see the
Earth-moon system, the larger sphere pale green, mottled with white and
brown, the smaller a dazzling white. He realized all at once that he
had two homes. The Mars of his boyhood, the Earth and New Washington
University, where he had spent his young manhood. He could never
forsake one for the other. He was as much of Earth as he was of Mars,
the verdant green richness of the one tugging at him with no less force
than the arid, wild frontier of the other.

"See if you can get anything on the radio," he told Laura. The warp
ship's receiver was a small one not meant for interplanetary distances,
but Alan guessed it could pick up the more powerful Earth stations
beamed to space through the Heavyside Layer.

The radio squawked and whistled, then they heard an announcer's voice
faintly. "... of Alan Tremaine's Federation forces. All Earth is still
shocked over Tremaine's ultimatum. The International Security Council
has been meeting in closed session for two days now, with no announced
decisions.

"Authoritative sources close to the Council say that President Holland
has admitted the Earth is helpless. It has been known for more than a
century that man's science was capable of building a cobalt bomb which,
with a weight of perhaps four hundred tons, could poison all life on
Earth with radioactivity.

"As we all have known since last Wednesday, this is precisely what
Tremaine has in mind. The cobalt bomb is actually a hydrogen bomb with
a layer of cobalt isotope surrounding it. While radioactive cobalt
tritium from the H-bomb trigger is quickly dispersed and rendered
harmless because the half-life of tritium is so short, radioactive
cobalt can spread through the Earth's upper atmosphere on the
jet-stream, raining lethal gamma rays from pole to pole.

"It is this terrible force which Alan Tremaine has threatened to
unleash on the Earth."

"That's a lie!" Laura cried. "You are not even there. It's Keifer,
using your name."

Alan nodded grimly. "He couldn't give such an ultimatum himself.
The Outworld people wouldn't listen. But if they believe it's my
decision...."

The commentator was saying: "... brief review of the points of
Tremaine's ultimatum. One, unconditional surrender of all remaining
Earth forces on the Outworlds. Two, repair of the space-warp bringing
water from Venus to Mars. Tremaine claims Earth broke the warp, but
the government has denied this right along. It is believed Tremaine
is instilling hatred for Earth in the Federation peoples with this
diabolical lie. Three, total independence for the Outworlds. Four,
Tremaine threatens that if the first three conditions are not complied
with by tomorrow night, twenty-three hundred hours Greenwich Time, he
will unleash the cobalt bomb.

"Since Tremaine's Federation has sundered the space-warp itself, Earth
is unable to comply with the second of Tremaine's points. While radar
defenses are being alerted on a planet-wide basis, an unmanned rocket
with a cobalt-bomb warhead, approaching the Earth at interplanetary
speeds, could not be stopped. The Earth government has continued its
hourly appeal to Tremaine not to destroy the civilization which has
carried mankind out to the planets. So far, Tremaine has not responded."

"He--he wouldn't dare," Laura said as Alan shut the radio. But her
voice lacked conviction.

"He might, Laura. He just might do anything. The radioactivity wouldn't
last forever. Keifer might be planning to wait until it's dispersed,
then return to Earth and extend his plans for empire there. All life
would die, but he could replant crops, bring his hand-picked leaders to
settle with him, and govern the solar system as a small totalitarian
state."

"But I thought he wanted to take over Earth and all its people."

"He might figure they won't listen to him. If they do, he takes over.
If they don't, he goes through with his ultimatum. Either way, he has
Earth."

"But Alan. Five billion people...."

"I'm going down there," Alan said. "I've got to find out all the
details."

"Alan, they'll kill you! They think it's _your_ ultimatum, your cobalt
bomb."

"If anyone can stop Keifer, I can. The Federation is loyal to me."

"They won't listen to you. They won't let you talk. They'll kill you."

"My father died for what he believed," Alan said. "So did your father.
As long as there's a chance, I've got to go down there. Keifer's
ultimatum is set for tomorrow night."

       *       *       *       *       *

Impulsively, Laura took his hands and squeezed them. "I won't let you
throw your life away. I can't lose you now, Alan. I can't. I...."

Alan tilted her chin with his hand and looked into her eyes. Her lips
were trembling. She was going to cry, he thought. "Darling," he said,
"you've got to listen. I love you. I ... I think I was falling in love
with you on the Mars liner, before all this started to happen. I never
had a chance to tell you. I'm telling you now."

"Then you can't...."

Their lips came together, gently at first, then fiercely, as if this
were their first kiss of love and perhaps their last. "Oh, Alan. Yes,
Alan. I love you. So you can't...."

"No," Alan told her quietly. "I've got to. Once a great poet of Earth
put it so clearly, so much better than I could ever say it. How did it
go? Something about 'I could not love thee, dear, so much, lov'd I not
honor more.' Do you think for a minute we could live with ourselves or
ever look each other in the eye again if we let this happen without
trying to stop it?"

"I'm begging you, Alan. They will kill you as soon as you set foot on
Earth."

"I said I'm going down there. I am going. But not before I convince
you." He spoke long and persuasively. He told her about other lovers,
everywhere, about the men and women of Earth, the five billion helpless
people who had a right to live their own lives too and fall in love and
marry, about the hundreds of millions of Outworlders whose minds and
hearts would be fettered by Bennett Keifer if he had his way, about how
a man had this double allegiance all his life, to the people he loved
and to freedom and democracy and the ideas in which he believed. How
the one allegiance might make a man think of an island somewhere or a
small asteroid where the rest of the world wouldn't matter but how the
other allegiance always brought him back to the crowded places, the
dangerous places.

Laura kissed him again, sobbing, clinging to him. When finally he let
her go, she whispered so low he hardly could hear the words: "You are
right, Alan. It's your duty to go."

"Whatever happens, Laura, I love you."

"Keep telling me that all the time, Alan. I don't want to hear anything
else. I'm going with you."

He smiled, then shook his head. "You're going to Earth all right. But
you're going where you'll be safe."

Then Alan took the ship down, watching the great green globe of Earth
swelling up toward them and then the wondrous sight of the continents
swimming into view and the vast blue-green seas and the white cottony
puffs of cloud formations and wondering if he soon would be saying
goodbye to Laura for the last time.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was night in New Washington. Outside, you could hear the familiar
street sounds, the jet-cars rushing by, the muted talk of people after
the theater down the street closed for the night, the gentle sighing of
wind in the trees which spanned the avenue.

Inside the fraternity lodge, everything was quiet. New Washington
students were studying in their small rooms; some of them had already
retired. Bill Graham, who had been Alan's room-mate in the good days,
said: "You know I want to believe you, Alan. We've been friends ever
since we started through college together."

"All I want you to do is watch Laura. Don't let her out of your sight."

"But everyone says you gave Earth the ultimatum."

"Would I be here now if I did? I'm trying to prevent it, Bill. You've
got to believe me."

"All I have to do is watch her?"

"Yes. I'm going straight to the President if I can. Something's been
bothering me about this ultimatum of Keifer's all along. Now I think
I know what it is. I think we have a chance to stop him, Bill. Just a
chance, but we can try."

"What about your ship? How did you get through the radar net?"

Alan smiled grimly. "I remembered your registration number, Bill. I had
to give it to them. They'll think it was your ship."

"Holy Mac!" Bill Graham cried. "Then they'll think I--"

"If Keifer wins, we'll all be dead tomorrow night anyway. It was the
only thing I could do Bill. I had to get through."

Bill Graham chuckled softly, as if it all were very funny. But he
reached out and shook Alan's hand. "I'll watch her, Alan."

Alan nodded, turned to Laura and kissed her quickly without saying
goodbye. That way, he thought, he had to see her again....

Everything was so normal on the streets of New Washington, it almost
made Alan think the Federation uprising, the death of his father
and Laura's father, Keifer's ultimatum to Earth--all were part of
some wild, impossible dream. The boys and girls were walking hand in
hand. The old men were walking their dogs or taking their evening
constitutionals or stopping on street corners to talk with their
friends. The theater marquees were gay and well-lighted. It was only
when you studied the faces and saw the lines of worry, the furrowed
brows, the thoughtful, furtive looks, only when you listened to the
conversations and heard "Tremaine's ultimatum" ... "nothing we can
do" ... "helpless" ... "he wouldn't dare" ... "I'm going to pretend
nothing's wrong and just go right on living till tomorrow night" ...
"what else can you do?" ... "dear God, what else?" ... it was only then
that you knew.

Alan took a bus to the center of the city and fell in with a group
of reporters converging on the White House. One of them was saying,
"About time they let us in on this. That International Security Council
hasn't uttered a peep since the ultimatum, but they've been meeting
continuously."

"Ought to make a few banner headlines," another man said.

"So what? After tomorrow night, there won't be any more headlines--or
anything. If I could just get that Tremaine here, how I'd love to choke
the life out of him with these two hands."

"You and about five billion other people."

       *       *       *       *       *

They entered the White House grounds. Ahead of them, the stately white
building was ablaze with light. Guards were stationed at all the
entrances.

The reporters began to queue up in single file as two uniformed men
examined their credentials. His heart pounding, Alan let the line carry
him forward. All the doors were guarded. If he could not get in this
way, he could not get in at all.

Finally, he was saying: "Adams, New York Times."

"Your press card, Mr. Adams?"

"I left it at the hotel."

The guard shook his head. "Sorry. You'll have to get it."

"I don't want to miss the press conference."

The guard looked up and shouted, "Anyone else from the New York Times
here?"

A man behind Alan nodded.

"You know this fellow?"

The man studied Alan, then shrugged. "Don't think so. I never forget a
face."

"He says he's from the Times."

"The devil he is."

"Who are you?" the guard asked Alan.

For answer, Alan shoved him out of the way and plunged inside the
building. His feet pounded a loud tattoo on the polished marble floor
as he sprinted down the corridor. There were shouts and the pounding of
more feet behind him. He followed an arrow which pointed straight ahead
above the words PRESS ROOM. He climbed a broad marble staircase. The
voices were louder behind him, the click-clacking feet closer.

Breathing harshly, he charged through the doorway to the press gallery.
He stopped in his tracks.

The International Security Council was assembled in special session,
ready to meet the reporters and their questions. Alan recognized
the faces, the gaunt, weary but somehow intensely warm features of
President Holland, the other faces, all grave and tired, about the
horseshoe-shaped table.

The guards sprinted up behind Alan, pinning his arms to his sides.

The Secretary General of the International Security Council, seated at
President Holland's right, looked up and said, "What is the trouble
here?"

"Begging your pardon, sir," the first guard explained, "this man has no
proper identification."

President Holland glanced up at Alan, the deep-set eyes studying him.
"I've seen that face before," he said. "I don't know where, but I'm
sure I've seen him."

"Come on, bud," the guard told Alan. "You're going to answer some
questions downstairs." He led Alan back toward the door.

Wrenching his arms free, Alan ran back toward the horseshoe-shaped
table. The eyes of the ministers of all the federated Earth states were
on him. He took a deep breath and said, "Gentlemen, I am Alan Tremaine."




                              CHAPTER VII


Alan remembered only vaguely what happened then. Side-arms were whipped
out by the guards. One dignified member of the Council lunged across
the table, dignity forgotten, and tried to slap Alan. The reporters,
sensing something important when Alan had broken away from the guards
downstairs and plunged inside the White House, had entered the room.
Now the television cameras were grinding. There was not a friendly face
in the room.

"Listen to me!" Alan shouted. He could not make himself heard over the
babble of excitement in the room. He pounded on the table and cried,
"You've got to listen! Do you think I came here to die with all of you
and all Earth tomorrow night? Do you?"

The guards held him again, one of them wrenching his right arm up and
back painfully. The members of the Security Council were grim-lipped
and silent. One of them restrained the Minister from France, who was
still trying to get at Alan. "You ... you are the worst traitor since
Judas Iscariot," the Minister from France told Alan.

"I never sent that ultimatum," Alan shouted. "I wouldn't be here if I
did. Are you going to listen to me?"

There was an angry murmuring from the horseshoe-shaped table. A
reporter broke away from his companions and swung his fist awkwardly
at Alan's face. "You have that coming," he said, "from five billion
Earthmen."

Even the members of the Council seemed to approve. Some of them stood
up and came around the table toward Alan menacingly. Laura's words
screamed inside Alan's skull--_they'll kill you_.

"Stop!" President Holland's firm voice boomed across the room. "Are we
all animals here? Tremaine has the right to speak. With the Earth about
to die, are we not even going to clutch at straws? Tremaine knows we
can keep him here until tomorrow night, yet he came. I want to hear
him. I will hear him if I have to do it alone."

The Ministers assumed their places at the table sheepishly. The
television cameras panned closer to Alan. He could sense it: five
billion people were watching him.

He talked rapidly. He didn't know how long they would listen. He told
them how he had gone to Mars to take his father's place, told them how
Richard Tremaine, then Eugene Talbrick had been murdered in cold blood
by Bennett Keifer because he favored violence and complete dissolution
of the union and they did not. He told them how Keifer still intended
to use the name of Tremaine because Alan's father had been loved by the
Outworlders and respected by the government of Earth. He told them
how General Olmstead had been taken and eventually killed. They were
listening now. Still doubtful, but listening. He could sense that some
of the hostility had gone from them. They were weary now, and without
hope in their eyes.

He went on, "I still think more than half the Outworlders would rally
behind me. Maybe I don't deserve their faith, but they remember my
father who spent his whole life and finally died in their cause. Let
them know I'm here. Beam it to the Outworlds. Tell them I renounce
Keifer as a traitor to his own people and to the Earth that spawned
them. I'll talk if you want. I'll go on the air."

"Fool!" cried the Minister from France bitterly. "Even if it would
work, what does it matter? Tomorrow we all die."

"There's a chance you won't," Alan said. "I'm coming to that. To bring
you up to date, I landed on Earth a few hours ago and left General
Olmstead's daughter with a friend at the PBT Fraternity House of New
Washington University. You can check everything I said with her."

"You said there was a chance...."

"Yes. When did Keifer give his ultimatum?"

"Forty eight hours ago."

"That's what I figured. Unless the cobalt bomb was on its way to Earth
for at least eight or ten days, it couldn't reach here from Mars or
Venus by tomorrow night!"

"Then you mean it's all a bluff?" the Secretary General demanded, hope
springing into his eyes.

       *       *       *       *       *

"No," Alan admitted. "It's no bluff. Two weeks ago, Keifer shut the
flow of water through the space-warp from Venus to Mars. Now I realize
why. He did it partly to get the people of Mars behind him when he
issued his own ultimatum. He didn't want a revolution on his hands. But
he did it for another reason, too.

"Gentlemen, if you know your astronomy, you'd know that a fairly rare
astronomical event has happened. Venus, Earth and Mars are all in
conjunction on the same side of the sun. To put it another way, Venus,
with the shortest, fastest orbit, has overtaken the Earth's orbital
position with respect to the sun. That's known as the synodic year.
Earth has likewise overtaken slower Mars, so the three planets are
lined up...."

"Imbecile!" screamed the Minister from France. "Here you stand, giving
us astronomical puzzles, while Earth hovers on the brink of disaster."

"It's important," Alan said patiently. "Venus, Earth and Mars are in a
line right now, Venus and Earth separated by some twenty-eight million
miles, Earth and Mars by less than forty million. What I'm saying is
this: Keifer didn't block Venusian water from the space-warp merely to
rally the Outworlders behind him when he claimed you were responsible.
He did it because the space-warp now passes within a couple of hundred
thousand miles from Earth. He did it because he intends to transport
the cobalt bomb here through the space-warp. I say that's the only way
he can get it here in time!"

President Holland stood up, his face white, excitement in his eyes.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, it's possible. We'll check the data with the
New Washington Naval Observatory at once. If what you say is true,
Tremaine...."

"It almost has to be true, sir. Keifer will need a launching site for
his cobalt bomb after he takes it from the space-warp, but I have
a hunch you'll find when you call the observatory that the moon's
orbital position at this time passes within a few hundred miles of the
space-warp. I say Keifer will launch his cobalt bomb at the Earth from
the moon."

Now the reporters suddenly friendly, were asking Alan so many
questions that President Holland had to drag Alan away from them. A
special jet took Alan, the President and a few advisors to the Naval
Observatory, where Alan's theory was confirmed. One of the astronomers
told President Holland jubilantly, "All you have to do is send a fleet
out to where the space-warp intersects the orbit of the moon and...."

"How can we?" President Holland groaned. "We've dispatched almost all
our ships to Mars, Venus and the Jovian moons to help put down the
Outworld insurrections. We're left with a few obsolete, ancient ships."

"It doesn't matter," Alan said. "Keifer's in the same boat. His own
ships have to defend the Outworlds. He'll only have a small fleet
there, if any. He's depending on surprise, don't you see? Even if your
ships couldn't get through, I'd have a chance. I'm Alan Tremaine.
Tremaine. The Outworlders still think I'm in charge. They'll have to
let me through."

"You'll leave at once," President Holland told him. "In the three
hours since you've been here, Alan Tremaine, you've given us new
hope." He placed his hand on Alan's shoulder, looking at him long and
searchingly. "All Earth must put its hope in you now. We don't have
time to check your story thoroughly. We can't. Tremaine, never did so
many people put their fate so completely in one man's hands as all
Earth is putting its fate in yours. If you're lying, if you're telling
the truth but wrong in your theory, life on Earth perishes. All life,
Tremaine."

"I've got to be right, sir," Alan told the President. "I've got to."

President Holland smiled. "I'm tired, Tremaine. We're all tired, but
we've got to go on. What ships we have will be ready to leave in an
hour."

An hour, Alan thought. Now was the time to say goodbye to Laura. Now,
with Earth solidly behind him. Now he could tell her of his hopes for
the future, which did not seem so bleak. He must see her before he
blasted off for the final reckoning with Keifer.

       *       *       *       *       *

No sounds came from the fraternity house in New Washington University.
He called Bill Graham's name, but heard nothing. "Laura?" he said.
"Laura, where are you?" The place seemed completely deserted.

"Alan Tremaine, is that you?" He whirled--and grinned. Mrs. Moriarity,
the fraternity house mother, stood below him on the stairs.

"I thought I recognized your voice, young man. My hearing isn't so good
anymore."

"Where's Bill Graham?"

"Upstairs, I suppose. He had some visitors before, Alan. Two men. I ...
I didn't like them. I didn't think Bill would have such friends. And
Alan, they came downstairs with a lady. A woman! She must have been in
Bill's room. There was an awful rumpus up there, then they came down.
I'm going to give Bill Graham a talking to, you can bet."

Alan rushed upstairs without answering. Mrs. Moriarity was still
talking, her voice carrying up from below. "How did you like your trip
to Mars, Alan? I meant to ask you." Her own small world went on. The
bigger world hadn't mattered for years, still didn't matter, even now.

Bill Graham's room was a shambles. Furniture turned over, the desk on
its side, the bed....

Bill Graham was on the floor. He lay with his hands in front of his
face. His final gesture had been an instinctive one of protection. Half
his face had been sheared away horribly by an atomic blast.

Laura was gone.

Final reckoning with Keifer, Alan thought. Bill Graham. Happy-go-lucky.
A big kid who hadn't quite grown up yet. Give you the shirt off his
back. Now he was dead.

How? Alan thought of it briefly and vaguely. It hardly mattered. It
seemed impossible, too--but other things were more important. Except
for Bill Graham and Alan, only the reporters, guards and Ministers at
the Security Council meeting had known where Laura was. Alan had told
them.

There was a traitor among them.

The traitor had come here and taken Laura, killing Graham when he tried
to prevent it.

Laura was bound for the moon, Keifer's final trump card.

Alan shook his fist impotently, then slammed it down on the overturned
desk. _I'm coming, Laura_, he thought.

_I'm coming, Bennett Keifer._




                             CHAPTER VIII


"Six ships," President Holland told Alan at the New Washington
Spaceport. "That's all we could make ready in time, Tremaine. Six
battered line ships, out of commission for five years. It's all we had."

"I'm sorry, sir," a man in the uniform of a four star general told the
President. "We sent all our power to the Outworlds."

"You couldn't do anything else, General," President Holland said. "We
had received no ultimatum then. It seemed incredible Keifer or anyone
would dare attack the Earth."

"I'll get through," Alan said.

Flood lights stabbed out across the dark field, criss-crossing it with
brilliant beams of light. Ground crews scurried like insects caught
in their glare, fueling the six spaceships, checking them, trying to
accomplish an extensive reconditioning job in minutes.

Soon the spacecrews were jogging out on the field in bulky blast suits,
small gleaming figures in the light of the floods. On one of the ships
Alan saw the blue and gold symbol of the Outworld Federation, freshly
painted, side by side with the globe and stars of Earth.

"You're blasting off for the good people of the Federation as well
as for the Earth," President Holland explained. "We've radio'd the
Outworlds and told them. We don't know the effect, if any."

"Keifer will have his hands full," Alan said. "I hope."

The jogging figures of the spacemen had separated into six groups of
half a dozen men each, one group for each of the battered old ships.

"There's a launching site at the old, abandoned Terra Mines in Tycho
Crater on the moon," President Holland told Alan. "If you don't get
Keifer at the space-warp and stop him there, you'll probably find him
in Tycho."

President Holland and the four star general were walking across the
dark field with Alan now, toward the lead ship, standing on its tail
in the glare of the flood lights. "All Earth is blasting off with you,
Tremaine," the President said.

He shook hands solemnly with Alan. So did the General. Alan closed
the airlock door behind him, heard a plopping sound as the airtight
rubberoid fabric of the circular door gripped the hull and sealed it.
The spacemen were at their stations, not talking, not smoking. Waiting.

Through the viewport, Alan watched President Holland and the General
trotting out of the blast-off area.

Alan walked into the control room, past the grim, silent crew, each man
stationed at his obsolete equipment. Half a dozen overage ships, with
Earth's fate in the balance.

And Laura up there somewhere.

"Let's go," Alan said.

The rocket engines whined and shrieked into life. Alan and the pilot
strapped themselves into blast chairs. The roar was deafening. Alan
could feel his face contorted by eight G's pressure as the ancient
spaceship blasted off. Then, his muscles bunched in agony, he blacked
out.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dazzling white with reflected sunlight but pock-marked with craters,
shadowed with deep valleys and gorges, sundered by great rock faults,
puckered with vast bleak mountain ranges the moon swept up at them.

"That reporter wants to see you now, Mr. Tremaine," the pilot told Alan.

"I haven't time for--what? What reporter?"

"The one President Holland sent along to cover the story for Earth."

"He didn't tell me--" Alan began, then shrugged. The reporter would be
a nuisance, but it hardly mattered. "No interviews now," Alan said.
"Tell him we're not going to land on the moon--yet. Tell him we're
looking for the space-warp."

Gem-bright, unblinking, the stars of space gleamed through the
viewport. Star-maps were spread on the floor of the small control
cabin, crew members pouring over them. Somewhere out there, space
should look different. Somewhere, starlight should be cut off by a
narrow band of blackness--the space-warp. They had to find it, and
they had to hurry. It made good sense to tell the Outworlders Alan had
denounced Bennett Keifer as a traitor, for some of them might not fire
on Alan's six small ships. But it also presented a danger: Keifer would
probably abandon the hour of his ultimatum and rush ahead with his
plans. They had mere minutes to find the space-warp. Perhaps already it
was too late.

With the pilot taking over, Alan kneeled on the floor and studied the
star-maps, calling out grid-coordinates while a man at the viewports
checked them against space itself. Soon his head was swimming with the
multitudes of white dots on the blueprint paper, with the white graph
lines, the swarms of stars. "Sixteen-eleven," he said, "Deneb, Vega,
Altair.... Sixteen-twelve, Pollux, Procyon, Sirius...."

"Check ... check...."

"Seventeen, one, Achernar, Canopus...."

"Check...."

Check, _check_, CHECK!

"Nineteen, three, Capella, Regulus, Alpha Centauri.... Nineteen,
four...."

"Hold it! Wait a minute, Mr. Tremaine. If you draw a line from Capella
through Regulus to Centauri, what else should you cross?"

Alan looked at his map. "You come close to Castor and Pollux, close to
Cancer, you cross the constellations Crater and Corvus."

"Not out here, you don't."

Then Alan was running to the viewport. Between bright, unblinking
Regulus and even brighter Alpha Centauri was--nothing. A hole in space.
A long, narrow path of intense, unbroken blackness.

"That's it!" Alan shouted. He felt like laughing, like pounding the
man's back, like dancing a jig. They had found the space-warp.

Alan ran to the pilot chair, swinging the small ship around almost
ninety degrees. In the rear viewscreen he could see the five other
ships wheeling about and following.

And something else--in front of them. Specks moving across the
firmament in tight formation, growing.

Keifer's fleet.

       *       *       *       *       *

He counted fifteen ships, each larger and with more firepower than
his own, guardians of the space-warp, rocketing down toward them from
where Corvus should have been, from the hole in space behind which the
constellation Crater hid.

Alan flicked his radio toggle to the on position, said into it: "This
is Alan Tremaine calling the Outworld fleet. Tremaine calling! Do you
hear me?"

"_Go back to Earth, Tremaine. We don't want to kill you._"

"I'm flying the flags of Earth and the Federation. If you listen to me,
it still isn't too late for Equal Union. I denounce Bennett Keifer as a
traitor to Earth and the Outworld Federation, as my father would have
done."

"_Go back to Earth, Tremaine._"

Alan shook his head, then scrambled the radio frequency to his small
fleet's band. "Flagship calling," he said. "We're heading for the warp.
Hold off the Federation fleet at all costs."

And, to the pilot: "Take her in, Stan. I'm getting into spacegear."

Five obsolete ships against the Federation's bigger fleet. A sixth
ship to reach the warp and hover there while Alan explored. The odds
against them seemed tremendous, but Alan brushed them from his mind.
Swiftly, he climbed into a bulky spacesuit, inflating it while one of
the crew secured the glassite helmet over his head. He tested the suit
radio, secured a set of personnel jets to his shoulders, then clomped
into the airlock with an atomic rifle, slamming the ammo pan into place
in the breech. He stood impatiently at the outer door of the airlock,
looking through the small viewport into space. Spinning in a great
wheel formation, the three-dimensional equivalent of the ancient naval
maneuver called crossing the T, the Federation fleet spun toward them.

Out to meet it--five ships, darting like silver midges at the giant
wheel.

All at once, energy erupted searingly before his eyes as the fleets
met. Two ships in the Federation wheel darkened and fell, tumbling end
over end, out of rank. But one Earth ship was blown to pieces. If the
rate of attrition continued....

He didn't think about it. He spun the mechanism which controlled the
outer airlock door and pulled himself out on the hull of the ship. The
battle formations were drifting behind him now. Ahead--the black tube
of the space-warp.

Pointing himself toward the blackness, Alan fired his shoulder jets.

       *       *       *       *       *

Here along the vast track of the warp, a station hung in space. As it
swelled up toward him, Alan could make out three tiny figures, three
men in spacesuits, watching him.

Space erupted violently about him as two of the figures raised atomic
rifles to their shoulders and fired. Switching his jets on and off,
Alan darted erratically through space to present a difficult target.

He was a hundred yards from the warp-station now. Overhead, his
flagship was hovering on the sunward side of the station, casting a
huge black shadow across it. Aiming carefully, Alan fired his own
atomic rifle.

One of the figures collapsed on the surface of the station. The second
was still firing at him. The third, unarmed, was watching. Alan swung
quickly around to the dark side of the small globe, strapped the rifle
to his shoulders, alighted on his hands and cartwheeled upright.
Without pausing for breath, he unstrapped the rifle, held it ready at
his hip and sprinted around the station.

Two heads bobbed into view on the incredibly close horizon. Alan and
the Federation soldier fired simultaneously. Alan could feel the heat
of the blast through his spacesuit. Before his eyes, his glassite
helmet fused. A bare slit remained for him to see through.

But the second Federation soldier had fallen.

"I'm unarmed!" the third man screamed over his suit radio.

Alan recognized Captain--no, Major--Haddix's voice. "Lead me to the
warp, Major," he said. "No tricks."

Seconds later, Alan was following the spacesuited figure across the
smooth black surface of the warp-station. He passed one of the fallen
soldiers, a gash torn in the fabric of his spacesuit. The body and head
had swelled horribly against the suddenly unequal pressure. The thing
inside the suit did not look human.

Major Haddix stopped at the brink of the space-warp, waiting for Alan
with his back to the pit.

"Has the bomb come through yet?" Alan demanded.

Major Haddix made a lewd gesture, but his face paled behind the
glassite helmet when Alan raised the atomic rifle and calmly began
squeezing the trigger.

"Wait! I'll tell you. Don't point that thing...."

"Talk, damn you."

"It's already on the moon, Tremaine. Keifer changed his plans when he
knew you were coming. But take it from me, you don't have a chance."

"What about General Olmstead's daughter?"

"She's with him, I think. Listen, Tremaine. Go easy. I'm only a
professional soldier. I do what I'm told."

At that moment, a second shadow darted across the surface of the
warp-station. Instinctively, Alan looked up. A Federation ship had come
to do battle with the Earth ship hovering there, flashing by it and
unleashing a salvo of raw energy. The Earth ship was swinging around
to bring its own atomics to bear....

And then Haddix was upon him, clawing for the atomic rifle. They
struggled there at the lip of the space-warp, the weapon between them.
Slowly, Alan felt himself being forced around, felt nothing but space
below his left foot as he tried to step back. Immediately behind him
was the warp, and instant, horrible death if he fell in.

Haddix's gauntletted fist struck his glassite helmet, jarring him. Alan
swung his arms wildly for balance, then remembered his personnel jets
and switched them on, pivoting around at the same instant. Borne aloft
by his shoulder rockets, Alan and Haddix spun dizzily over the abyss.

It was Haddix's own blind fury that killed him.

He swung his fists at Alan, trying to shatter the already damaged
glassite helmet. He forgot that Alan alone wore the jets.

Alan watched the figure tumbling below him, head over heels, slowly, as
in a dream. Haddix's voice came to him once over the radio in a hideous
scream. Then the spacesuited form was swept into the warp, where it
twisted, was bent and broken....

Overhead, the Earth ship hovered. Far away, the gutted hulk of the
Federation craft which had come to challenge it was drifting off into
space. Alan jetted for the Earth ship.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hands lifted the helmet from his head, deflated and unfastened the
spacesuit. "How are the others making out?" Alan gasped.

"They're gone. All gone. Five ships, five brave crews...."

"And the Federation?"

"Three ships left."

"Can we beat them to the moon?"

"We can try."

Just then the reporter joined Alan and the two crewmen in the
companionway. "You'll reach the moon, all right," he said.

He was pointing an atomic pistol at them.




                              CHAPTER IX


Cold and lifeless, the surface of the moon expanded before them. The
six man crew of the spaceship sat in the control cabin. Alan was at the
controls. The reporter stood at the door, facing them with his back to
the companionway. The atomic pistol was unwavering in his hand.

"You were at the Security Council meeting," Alan said bitterly. "You're
working for Keifer. You sent those men to kidnap Laura. Then, in the
confusion at the spacefield, you claimed the President had designated
you to cover the story for Earth, and--"

The reporter nodded. "A man's a fool not to join the winning side while
he can. You'll take this ship down in Tycho crater. You'll land near
the old Terra Mines dome. They'll drag you in through the domelock with
a tractor beam. You'll be able to watch them launch the bomb to Earth."

Jagged, pock-marked and buried in its mantle of pumice, the surface
of the moon sped by below them. Dark, somber _maria_, the broad deep
valleys of the moon, appeared, were reached and left behind. Rills cut
tortuously across the moonscape; rays like molten gold radiated from
some of the craters.

Finally, the great ringwall of Tycho crater flashed into view. At one
side, just inside the ringwall of the crater and more than two-score
miles from the lonely central peaks, the glassite dome which had housed
Terra Mines in the early days of space travel could be seen.

Alan brought the spaceship down on its tail, its rocket exhaust
blasting the pumice below with blistering heat.

There was still time, Alan thought.

But they were helpless.

He wondered if, in decisive moments, history was full of such
traitors--men like the reporter who would soon bring civilization on
Earth, life on Earth, to an end when he returned Alan and his crew
over to Keifer's Federation forces within the dome. He shrugged--then
wondered also how strongly a man had to believe to forfeit his life for
a principle.

For if he tried anything, the reporter would kill him.

If he didn't, you could count the time remaining for Earth in hours.

Abruptly, he slapped his hand across the firing lever, heard the surge
of sudden power at the same moment that the ship rocked and plunged
moonward on its side. There were shouts behind him in the cabin. There
was a split-second of confusion.

Alan spun around and dove across the room for the reporter. The man had
fallen and was just climbing to his feet when Alan reached him. He must
have decided there was no time to fire. Instead, he hurled the heavy
weapon at Alan.

It struck his shoulder, fell away. Then he was on the reporter,
reaching for his throat, choking him, strangling.... Hands dragged him
clear.

"He's unconscious," someone said. "Lay off, Tremaine."

There was a lurch as tractor beams from the dome caught and held
the spaceship. They were tugged through the domelock but all were
heavily-armed with atomic rifles and pistols when the ship came to a
stop inside.

       *       *       *       *       *

Another ship lay on its side within the half-mile-in-diameter dome. A
dozen men stood about, waiting for them to be delivered like sheep.

Alan led his men outside into the cool, canned air of the dome. Their
concentrated fire was unexpected and deadly, dropping the Federation
men where they stood. Three or four of them managed to crawl behind the
second ship, from where they returned the fire. One of Alan's men fell.

"Quick!" Alan cried. "Three of you cut around the front of the ship.
Stan and I will slip around the tail rockets."

Without waiting for an answer, he led the pilot through a fierce
barrage of atomic pellets toward the rear of the spaceship. As the
missiles struck the ground on all sides of them, they exploded
violently, kicking up man-tall geysers of luna pumice.

"You're covered from both sides!" Alan shouted, poking his head
cautiously around the rocket tubes. His answer was a stream of atomic
pellets, which struck the tubes and fused them. Ignoring the deadly
fire, Alan plunged on, feeling the kick of his own atomic rifle as he
triggered shot after shot blindly ahead of him.

There were two men left alive back there, standing back to back,
trembling, their hands high over their heads.

"Where's Keifer?" Alan barked at them.

One pointed vaguely outside the dome. "The central mountains," he said.

"What are you talking about?"

"A shipload of technicians brought the bomb there from the space-warp.
That's where Terra Mines had its launching equipment. Honest. I swear
it's the truth."

"Is Keifer there too?"

"Yes. With the girl. They went out in one of Terra Mines' old luna
tanks to watch the launching."

"When is it?"

"Half an hour, maybe less," the Federation soldier said. "You couldn't
stop them. You'll never get there in time."

"Is there another tank?"

The soldier nodded, pointed across the pumice to a squat green vehicle
with caterpillar treads. Alan was already running for it and calling
over his shoulder. "Stay here. If the remaining Federation ships try
to come down, use the dome-guns on them. Stan, you come with me."

The pilot sprinted after him. Together they entered the moon tank,
which was not airtight. They found Terra Mines spacesuits inside, the
ancient, long-unused type that looked like deep sea suits. The tank's
rocket engine sputtered and caught. The tank lumbered toward the
domelock and through it while they donned the spacesuits.

Then they were bouncing soundlessly across the airless surface of
Tycho crater, leaving the dome far behind them. Earth was above them
in the sky, in the quarter-phase. You could see part of North America
reflecting sunlight. Blue-black, the Pacific Ocean was in shadow.

Ahead loomed the central mountains of Tycho crater, biting into the
black sky, saw-toothed, for fifteen thousand feet. On labored the moon
tank, climbing now, its old engine whining a protest against the steep
grade, the sound echoing strangely inside the vehicle because outside
in the luna vacuum it could not be heard at all. They crossed the first
peak of the range, looked down on a great cauldron in the rock, a
crater within the crater, a mile across.

At one end was a Federation spaceship, standing on its tail rockets
and pointing up at the sky like a gleaming needle.

At the other end was the launching platform, massive, indistinct in
the gloomy shadows of the mountains. On the platform, partially out of
shadow, rested the cobalt bomb, big as a small spaceship.

Another tank sped toward them across the uneven moonscape. Two men were
perched atop it in red spacesuits, firing already although they were
still out of range.

       *       *       *       *       *

Alan tapped Stan on the shoulder, told the pilot he was going outside.
He slipped through the hatch and climbed on top of the lurching tank,
squatting there and slamming a fresh ammo pan into his atomic rifle.

The trip across the crater had consumed ten minutes of the time left
for Earth. What remained--twenty minutes? Twenty-five?

Suddenly, the moon tank shuddered beneath Alan's feet. They had come
within range sooner than he had expected. He felt himself hurled away,
and tumbled across the rocks as the tank burst briefly into flame,
devouring in seconds the oxygen stored in the fuel tanks. With an
eerie, noiseless blast, the tank exploded.

Alan scrambled forward across the rocks. Somehow, he had managed to
hold his atomic rifle. He wondered if the mechanism had been damaged
by his fall.

He didn't have time to think about it. The other tank, now less than
fifty yards away, was coming toward him. He fired once, forced to
reveal his position. A spacesuited figure fell from the tank, but
another climbed up through the hatch to join the man still kneeling
there.

The tank was thirty yards away now, still coming.

Concealed partially behind an out-cropping of rock, Alan fired again,
saw a second figure tumble off the roof of the tank, rolling down a
steep incline. The third man was returning his fire, but wildly. At the
last moment he tried to scramble within the hatch, but his glassite
helmet exploded as one of Alan's pellets caught it.

The tank was upon him, its caterpillar treads rolling soundlessly
across the rock. Flinging his rifle out of the way, Alan dove between
the two great treads and clung there. He could feel the jagged rocks
cutting into his spacesuit, scraping it, weakening the fabric. In
seconds, the fabric would rupture.

There was a hatch on the under-belly of the tank. Dragged along, Alan
held on with one hand and pried at the hatch with the other. He was
bruised and shaken by the rocks.

The hatch swung clear.

Alan chinned himself into the tank. A spacesuited figure sat over the
controls. Another one was staring at Alan through the glassite helmet
of a modern spacesuit.

It was Laura.

He didn't know if she would recognize him through the visor of his
ancient suit. She screamed, "Alan! Look out!"

Keifer was rising from the controls, plunging toward him. Alan met him
half way over the open hatch, grappled with him there. In Keifer's hand
was an atomic pistol. He couldn't bring it down to bear on Alan, but
was beating him across the head with it, the sound of metal striking
metal booming in Alan's ears. If his helmet had been glassite, he
thought, Keifer could have killed him.

He lost his footing and slipped, spread-eagling over the open hatch.
Keifer fell on him, pushing, trying to force him through. "You can't
stop the bomb," he said, his voice cold and metallic over the suit
radio. "It's all automatic now."

For answer, Alan swung his metal-shod fists at Keifer's glassite
helmet. He felt himself slipping. In seconds, Keifer's weight would
drive him through the hatch. He pounded the glassite helmet above him.
Blindly, he kept on pounding it. His legs were slipping, dangling
through the hatch over the jagged rocks. The slightest rip in the
fabric of his suit would bring instant death.

All at once, a crack appeared in Keifer's helmet, running from crown to
chin. Alan struck again with his right fist. The crack became a hole.
Keifer opened his mouth to scream, but then his face was swelling,
bloated--became a shapeless thing which no longer could fit within the
helmet.

Trembling, Alan stood up and rushed to the control. He saw that Laura
was already heading the moon tank back toward the launching platform.
He had a few seconds in which to play....

The tank lurched to a stop beside the platform.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hand over hand, Alan was climbing the scaffold. He reached the platform
with the tank's atomic rifle strapped across his shoulders. Half a
dozen technicians were preparing to leave.

"Shut it off!" Alan shouted. "Don't launch that bomb!"

"We can't stop it now. The mechanism is set."

"I'll kill you if I have to."

"We can't, don't you understand? The bomb will be launched in five
minutes--no, four minutes and fifty seconds now. Once set, it's fully
automatic. We didn't want to set it. Keifer made us do it. You're Alan
Tremaine, aren't you?" the technician asked. "We're on your side,
Tremaine. Most of the Outworlds are, ever since Earth's broadcast. But
Keifer came here with a hard core of his followers in a small fleet
and--"

"Never mind the talk. Can't you render the bomb harmless?"

The technician shook his head within the glassite helmet.

Overhead, the quarter-phase Earth was shining brightly, waiting
helplessly.

"It's the radioactive cobalt that will do the damage," Alan said.
"An atomic trigger for the hydrogen bomb, a hydrogen trigger for the
cobalt, right?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Then strip off the cobalt, you fools!"

"Three minutes," someone said. "We've got to get out of here. The
after-burners of the launching charge will cremate us."

"It can be done," one of the technicians told Alan, "but I don't think
you have the time."

"How, man? Tell me how!"

"Use your rifle. There's a seam running around the bomb. See? See it.
If you can cut around the whole seam, the cobalt should fall away in
two hemispheres. A hydrogen bomb alone would be launched at Earth, but
it should fall harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean."

"Two minutes, forty seconds."

The technicians moved about uneasily. Two of them began to climb down
the scaffold. The rest remained to watch Alan. They would save the
Earth or perish with him.

Alan raised his atomic rifle to his shoulder, aimed at the thin welded
seam about the huge bomb, and began to fire. At first there was
nothing. The pellets hit the bomb, which could only be triggered by an
atomic implosion at its core, and exploded there.

"A minute and a half," someone said, his voice hoarse over Alan's suit
radio.

The seam was widening, became a gap a foot across. Alan continued
firing, the rifle slapping back against his numb shoulder. The crack
spread around the circumference of the bomb.

"One minute to blast-off!"

Alan fired his last volley, stood there in despair. He had run out of
ammunition.

The cobalt outer skin of the bomb shook, spread apart, fell away in two
equal hemispheres. The technicians were plunging down the scaffold,
Alan right behind them. They tumbled inside the moon tank.

Laura didn't have to be told. The tank bounced away at full speed.

Behind them, a brilliant flash lit the lunar sky. For a moment, Alan
could see the hydrogen bomb streaking Earthward, a silver speck against
the blackness. Then it was gone. It was a vast trigger now, and nothing
more. Harmlessly, it would explode in the Pacific Ocean, like dozens of
tests which had been conducted there.

The Outworlds would agree to Equal Union now. Alan knew that. The
technician had told him. They had never liked the war. They were ready
to rally behind his name. There would be some ugliness between Earth
and the Outworlds for a time, because of what had almost happened. But
it would pass.

The Lunar Mines dome loomed ahead of them. The domelock opened to admit
them.

"I wish we were inside already," Laura said, "where there's some air."

"What for?" Alan asked her.

"So I can take off this helmet and kiss you."

Nothing would suit Alan better. Now, at last, they were inside. He took
off his helmet.

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