Alfred Coppel

“ He and Deve must somehow survive. Perhaps other men and women would come through the end in remote worlds, but there was no way of being certain. He had to be sure ... he had to know that the end would not come for all the race. He, a man, and Deve, a woman, could still carry out the mercifully dead Kant Mikal's injunction. In those fleeting moments above the writhing, doomed surface of Kaidor V, survival became an obsession with Aram Jerrold.
The Serpent awaited them where they had left it, and they hurried through the valve, feeling the tremblors of the fifth planet's death agonies. ”

“ Santane laughed scornfully, "They have seen what I can do."
"Don't be a fool, Santane," Jerrold said softly. "The Tetrarchy is not afraid of you. It can't be. It hasn't the ability to fear you or anything else. Can't you see that?" He indicated the scanners. The Fleet was bearing ever closer to Kaidor V, slashing through the cordons of defensive craft doggedly, impervious to losses and dying ships and men.
Fear touched Santane's face ... but for just an instant. Aram knew with sinking heart that the man's madness would not let him believe the truth. ”

“ Deve Jennet shook her head. "I don't care," she said. "I wouldn't want to go on ... without you."
Aram pleaded but Deve would not be convinced. She had no wish to survive alone. Finally, Aram took the syringe and emptied it into his forearm.
"Now, we'll see," he muttered.
The howl of bombs was a steady, increasing cacophony now, and, though ships of Santane's fleet still fought, the Thirty Suns naval force bombed almost at will. The skylon shook and buckled under the bombardment and the radiation count on the counters in the wrecked aerie showed an increasingly dangerous concentration. ”

“ Aram Jerrold watched helplessly as Santane's
beast-rockets screamed into the Void bearing
madness to the Thirty Suns, and knew that
this was cosmic Armageddon ... the crimson
horror of Space-war would smash Galactic
Civilization utterly and forever! ”

“ Ahead lay the second set of locks and then the shallows of the sea. The small starship careened upward, scraping its flanks on the smooth metal of the shaft. Aram sat frozen before the controls. A thousand questions burned in his mind, and there were no sure answers for any of them.
He couldn't be sure that Mikal had gotten the Star Cluster free. He might at this moment be driving the Serpent into the atomic tail-flare of the larger ship. He did not know whether or not the small destroyer could withstand the impact of the locks ... or the sea itself. ”

“ The tiny Serpent pointed for the fifth planet of the Kaidor Sun and drew its mantle of invisibility around itself, as though to hide from the fiery stars.
Far beneath the starship, Kaidor V lay like a bright scimitar. With the energy shield momentarily off, they approached the planet's night side, deep in the global penumbra. No lights marked the populous factory cities—the world rested dark, poised to lash out against the stars, falsely confident in its possession of frightful weapons. ”

“ The creature behind the wire howled again, plaintively now.
"Let's get out of here," breathed Deve faintly.
"You see what Santane will use to seize the Tetrarchy," Mikal went on when they were once again in the meeting hall. "He imagines that the mere threat of it will subdue the Supreme Council."
"But that's wrong!" exclaimed Aram: "The Tetrarchy will fight! There has never been a bureaucracy in the history of mankind that didn't imagine itself invincible!"
"Yes, the Tetrarchy will fight," agreed Mikal. "And a war of absolute destruction will engulf the Thirty Suns. Unless...." ”

“ Presently Jerrold and his guide reached a shaft imbedded in the side of the crag, atop which sat the grim Fortress. Aram turned his eyes upward. The great, bastioned stronghold seemed to crouch on the crest of the cliff. On the highest turret, a green banner emblazoned with a golden Spaceship and Sun hung sodden and limp in the falling rain.
With no hesitation, the Green stationed at the guard-post by the shaft entrance signalled Aram and his guide through. There was a short walk up a spiralling ramp and then they stood before what appeared to be simply a blank wall. ”

“ Jerrold broke off in horror as the guard returned, leading a line of five shambling beasts. The creatures fought the chains that bound them, howling with outrage.
"How," demanded Santane, "can Terminus attack me if they face that?" His eyes lit, kindled with some obscene pleasure at the spectacle. "First there are pains in the neck and head. Blinding—agonizing pains! Then comes unconsciousness, and memory goes ... then the glands alter, and men become ... beasts...."
Deve Jennet moaned. Her friends and comrades were in that line of disfigured subhuman things. She clutched at Aram for support. ”

“ No one system could muster enough power to crush the Thirty Suns without being smashed to rubble itself in the process. A man who had served in a galactic Fleet could understand that. But a man who had served only as a governor could not, and that was the danger....
As a naval officer, Aram Jerrold knew something that Santane did not. He knew that vast navies will fight and destroy long after the hope of victory has gone. ”

“ Santane turned, took a stoppered vial from a cabinet and faced Aram again with a scowl. "One drop of this on the skin, and a human being becomes ... what you saw below. Shall I use it on the woman to convince you where your duty lies?"
Aram felt his heart skip a beat. Santane was not bluffing. Pressed, he would carry out his threat from sheer perverted malice. Aram looked hungrily toward the small air-sled on the landing....
He took a step toward the radio. Very probably his voice, recognized, would brings the bombs even quicker—but there was no way to convince Santane of that. ”

“ He must already have warned the Thirty Suns Government, perhaps sending specimens of his handiwork to impress the Supreme Council of the power of his virus weapons. Yet the Fleet would attack—Jerrold felt sure of it. The very nature of the Thirty Suns Government made any other course unthinkable. Bureaucracies, Aram knew, reacted like headless beasts to the things that threatened them, unable to make fine distinctions or true evaluations. ”

“ Life in the tunnels centered on the central pit—the spaceport. This, as Kant Mikal explained with considerable pride, was connected with the surface by a series of locks that emerged through the bottom of the sea in the offshore shallows down the coast from the Green Fortress. Under cover of night, a spaceship could emerge from the tunnels and lift into space without arousing the garrison of Greens who served on Atmion IV never dreaming of the quiet life beneath their feet. ”

“ Aram felt a terrible load being lifted from his shoulders. No matter what happened next, it was good to know that Deve had not betrayed him as he had thought.
"The Tetrarchy would not allow the existence of such a unit as the Group for a moment. Every hour that passes increases our danger. But we must finish our mission, Aram; we can do nothing else!" ”

“ Stopping only to pick up the fallen Green's rifle, Aram, Kant Mikal and Deve ran on toward the pit.
"Will the others try to make the spaceport?" gasped Jerrold as they ran.
"There's nowhere else to go," returned Mikal simply.
The Greens had not completely occupied the tunnels, for they met no more opposition. The sounds of fighting had stopped, though, as they burst into the large chamber that housed the spacecraft, and Aram realized that the Greens were gathering their forces for an attempt to prevent the Group's escape in the vessels. Aram looked about him with a sick heart. ”

“ Mikal seemed to read his thoughts. "Yes," he said, "Provincial Governor Santane."
"I don't ask you to join us for the sake of the Tetrarchy, Aram," pleaded Deve Jennet earnestly, "or because of any personal relationship between you and me. If the Thirty Suns Government knew of the Group, and of the manipulations we've performed to get equipment and personnel for our mission, not one of us would be left alive by the Greens. We've penetrated the highest circles, we've subverted loyal people. ”

“ I feel it only fair to warn you that the Supreme Council would be extremely displeased if this prisoner should escape with his life. It is felt that an example must be made of him. If it is unwise to carry out the sentence here on Terminus, I will be happy to arrange a transfer to Atmion IV. On the Green planet there will be no possibility of trouble by Fleet members. I must insist that you accede to the wishes of the Council. Aram Jerrold must die in the disintegrators. No other course of action will be acceptable to the Supreme Council! ”

“ Has Mikal had time to get the Star Cluster clear of the locks now?" Jerrold shouted at the girl over the whine of machinery.
Deve Jennet had heard the projectiles too. She nodded her head and braced herself against the navigation table. "Let's go!" she shouted back.
With pounding heart, Aram Jerrold lifted the Serpent off the floor of the pit. Blindly, he let the invisible starship nose into the open shaft above. He knew that the moment the Greens realized their quarry was gone, they would begin firing blindly up into the vertical tunnel above them. If one shot should hit the jets...! ”

“ He shouted for Deve to strap herself to the deck rings near the navigation table and make ready for the impact. Time seemed to slow down to a crawling pace. The breath came harshly in his throat, and sweat coursed down his naked back. His bare feet and legs felt cold and clammy....
He was not ready when it came. The first rending screech of tearing metal filled the tiny control room and the instrument panel came smashing up to meet him. He heard a whooshing roar and the scream of protesting gyros. ”

“ There remained only the sentence of death to be passed—the method and place decided upon—and it would be done with. The ponderous bureaucracy of the Tetrarchy had wrung him dry, and now it prepared to cast him aside, satisfied that his rebellion was a purely personal aberration and not part of a widespread plot against the stability of galactic tyranny. ”

“ The inoculation was made on Kaidor V, and Santane sent him back here, thinking him an agent of the Greens. He is laying the foundations of his psychological attack, you see. A few cases like this, and then the shocker—the announcement that every planet in the Thirty Suns can expect an attack by guided missiles loaded with that virus unless his demands are acceded to."
"But surely there must be a specific for this thing," pursued Aram. "It would be valueless as a weapon unless there is."
"The virus attacks the higher cerebral centers first," explained Mikal. "Then the endocrine balance. ”

“ Here was the man whose rebellion had catapulted the galaxy into war. Because of Santane, billions faced degradation or extinction. It seemed impossible that one man could cause such a cataclysmic upheaval in a star-spanning culture. ”

“ Yellow streaks in the chart showed the track of interceptors, already fanning out from Kaidor V, seeking targets in the huge, onrushing formation of mighty battleships that spread across light-minutes of space. ”

“ A small two-man destroyer that had been rendered—Mikal claimed—"undetectable," would leave the Atmion system with the larger vessel and land on Kaidor III, a planet uninhabited save for a few bands of degenerated experimental subjects dumped there by Santane's biological ecologists. Mikal took care to point out that Kaidor III had two large land-masses, and the landing by the two members of the Group selected for that duty would be made on the land-mass unoccupied by the unfortunate subhumans. ”

“ Unless Santane can be convinced of that. Unless he can be prevailed upon to give up his ambition and content himself with being a balance for the rest of the Tetrarchy's power. Where there's one power only, tyranny results invariably. ”

“ Aram spat.
"... it is expected that the worker population will conduct itself with courage and resourcefulness under the threatened attack," continued the announcer smoothly. "Our newly organized armed forces are even now taking measures against the tyrants' home worlds ..."
Aram shuddered, thinking about the "measures" Santane had devised for use against the Tetrarchy. The brutalizing virus....
"... it is not to be expected that the war will be of long duration. Our scientists have developed a weapon that will make active resistance on the part of the tyrants impossible. ”

“ No matter how good Santane's ships might be, they could not handle an attack by that kind of numbers. The Kaidor system would take a terrible beating, and most probably Kaidor V would be bombed to rubble. That would be the end of it. The destruction would be strictly localized in the Thirtieth Decant. But there is, unfortunately more ... much more."
"Aram," exclaimed Deve, "it's horrible!"
"Santane has developed interstellar guided missiles, Jerrold," said Kant Mikal. "Faster than any Fleet vessel and impossible to intercept. ”

“ The spaceport was a sea of mud that still boiled in places from the heat of the great starship's landing jets.
Chained in a long line, the human cargo of the vessel was herded through the rain and mud toward an electrified wire enclosure. ”

“ They walked along in silence under a canopy of oddly unfriendly stars. Presently the faint sound of machinery warned that the conveyor was near. In the darkness, they almost ran headlong into it. The light of Deve's small pocket torch revealed two belts. ”

“ Deve said fervently.
"If Santane overthrows the Tetrarchy," said Kant Mikal bleakly, "the dark ages will descend. The man is mad for power, cruel and intelligent enough to hold it."
Aram thought swiftly. Santane was a relative unknown back on Terminus, was merely one of the thirty civil servants that held the Governorships of the Thirty star-systems making up the Tetrarchy. The Tetrarchy was a tyrannous bureaucracy ... but at least it was not a one-man government. As bad as it was, Santane's iron hand would be infinitely worse.
"But how," protested Jerrold. "With what? ”

“ Failing to hear from them, or hearing of failure, the small ship would proceed to Kaidor V and try to wrest the secret of the virus weapon from Santane. Plainly enough, the second expedition into the Thirtieth Decant would be a last, spasmodic attempt to save something from the ruins of galactic war. That phrase stayed with Jerrold as he listened to Kant Mikal. To save something from the ruins. That, he told himself, might well be the best the Group could accomplish with their meager resources. ”