Edwin L. Graber

“ A dry and thirsty wind seemed to suck the moisture from his body as he waited by the after lock with Niala. It swept across the hard surface of the space-port and sang dolefully around the mass of the grounded Algol; it even seemed to characterize the Delbans themselves. A lonely people out on this forsaken edge of the galaxy, they hungered and thirsted after wealth and power. The Guardian sympathized with them to some extent, yet at the same time realized the awful threat to civilization they represented with the mysterious, titanic broadcast power at their disposal. ”

“ They raced from the apartment, through the tapestried corridor to the mono-rail which twisted like a live thing under the impact of the blasting energy beams. Jolt after jolt shook the discoid as torpedoes and mines exploded with devastating energy concussions deep within its entrails.
It was uphill all the way as the tremendous mass of the Tane Jewel dragged at their flagging steps. Niala fell a half a dozen times from the smashing shocks that shook the discoid. Glayne helped her to her feet, only to be thrown down himself the next instant by the concussion of an energy torpedo. ”

“ Somewhere deep in Tjadlinn air was escaping with a screaming whistle where the skin was ruptured.
"You seem to have no idea how hideous Death is, Glayne," said the Delban, approaching them slowly. "Out here on the periphery of the galaxy we like to make some sort of a ceremony of his coming—you see, he is always hovering around us." ”

“ The big Guardian crouched to spring at the Delban, gathering his legs under him.
"I shouldn't do that, Captain," Bro-Doral observed sharply, waving the Cardy menacingly. "Life is too sweet to throw it away so rashly, isn't it? Besides, such refined methods require time and I fear your leader, Admiral Garstow, doesn't propose to give us that commodity."
It was true, Glayne realized. The energy beams of the assaulting fleets were smashing tremendous blows at the discoid so that it shuddered violently. The shocks increased in strength even as he turned his attention to them. ”

“ Generators screamed into ear-splitting crescendoes as the main driver engines were coupled into them to raise the anti-energy shield. The Kellander miatron blasters hurled ravening bolts of energy at the audacious Delban, reducing accumulator loads to zero in instants. The remainder of the driver atomics were coupled into the Kellander accumulators sending up loads that were fed through the continuously thundering miatrons at the Delban cruiser. Literally trillions of megawatts lapped at the Delban shield, making it glow up the spectral scale in a brilliant spider web of absorbing power foci. ”

“ Unless he could stop her, she could utterly destroy all Guardian hopes to overcome the Delbans. His great body tensed as he stared at her from the corner of his eye, watching for the slightest sign of inattention.
"Glayne," she continued, in a hard, objective voice with no trace of amusement, "Imperial Terra is not itself adverse to a policy of throwing someone to the dogs in order to gain time. But we want to give the dogs someone who can put up a fight. Poor Lorle would not be much of a match for Gort Bro-Doral and she wouldn't gain us much time. ”

“ Hours passed and Glayne cursed each inexorable minute. He and Brodis and the four grey-faced technicians were wet with perspiration. Ganser drooped in the chair, but his crimson eyes still blazed with fanatical hatred.
"Lord, what barriers!" whispered Brodis. He stared with fascination at the indomitable Delban.
"What is the power source?" Glayne asked repeatedly, holding his face impassive through sheer force of will. "You want to help us, Guardian. Tell us about the broadcast power." ”

“ To Graysen: "How is Ganser?"
"In excellent shape—even his face. According to Psych he is completely under control."
Glayne turned back to his screen and stared at the expanding Tjadlinn discoid. Instinctively he looked for the slim and deadly Jewel-powered cruisers that would be waiting for them if a warning had reached Tjadlinn. But of course he saw nothing. If they were there, they would be masked by inert detector screens, waiting for him to approach so closely that no amount of frantic acceleration could tear him from their grasp. ”

“ Of Imperial Terra! The words fairly blazed in Glayne's consciousness. His hand shot like lightning for the Cardy in his arm-pit holster, then stopped in mid-motion as he became aware of a hard, cylindrical object thrust into his ribs. It was her tiny Cardy blaster.
Through the waves of chagrin and impotent fury that surged up within him, Glayne heard her say mockingly: "Guardian warriors are supposed to function like machines when on missions, aren't they, Captain? Since when are machines rattled by pretty girls?" ”

“ When the fat men with rabbit eyes emerged from the Council Chamber and empowered him to work for them, he would be ready to move. A sudden raid on Delban space commerce, an energy bomb hurtling into a Delban city from a stolen Lorle warship—any one of a dozen expedients would have the ruthless Gort Bro-Doral screaming down on the helpless cities of Lorle. ”

“ Glayne was on the point of saying three G's out of deference to Niala Chodred and her light planet birth. But he thrust her from his mind as he realized that speed was of the utmost importance. High acceleration meant speed and speed meant time saved. Time to carry out his bold scheme, time to locate and sabotage the mysterious Delban power broadcast, time to build the mesh antennae and energize the Stellar Guardian fleet.... ”

“ The Delban shield held! The third pilot was unbelievably shocked as he stared at the battle screen. It was simply not conceivable that the two mightiest warships in space could not penetrate the shield of a pipsqueak Stellar cruiser.
Where were they getting the power? The question blazed up in the third pilot's consciousness as he stared at the slim, deadly Delban. Abruptly he recalled where he had seen the Delban's peculiar external mesh antenna.
"Broadcast power!" he blurted to his comrades. "Those devils are receiving broadcast power!" ”

“ And all the while the Guardian looked innocently into the Delban's tormented features, his hand clinging wetly to the Cardy in the folds of his jumper.
They met no more guards in the corridor; evidently the rest of them had hastened to the roof. But the first two were still eyeing them. Glayne could feel their stares burning into his back. Twenty feet separated them from the waiting elevator ... fifteen ... ten. Niala had drawn abreast with General Ganser; the sick, the pale, the fuzzy-minded Intelligence Chief whose cunning was known throughout the Galaxy. ”

“ Suddenly he became aware of the peculiar angle of flight of the air-jet. It was shrieking down on its stubby fins toward the planet's surface. Somehow the Terran girl had kicked off the robot control. As he righted the craft and reoriented the course, he became aware of the girl's brooding eyes on him.
"You are very clever, Captain Glayne," she said. "Perhaps one might even say courageous. A heavy planet man like yourself should not risk himself with such reckless bravery in a physical struggle with a small planet individual." ”

“ The Delban produced his explosive, nasal snicker. "Death is a fascinating subject; I have often wondered why you people in the Main Galaxy ignore him. Ever present, you know. And always waiting for you to step into his dark embrace."
Glayne watched Bro-Doral narrowly. He was but a couple of meters away. As the blows of the Kellander beams smashing into the discoid increased, he became more preoccupied with his subject and his grip on the Cardy grew lax. Glayne's hand tightened imperceptibly on the spare spacesuit. ”

“ Mentally he pictured the sleek Delban cruisers flashing overhead in fast orbits, pouring phenomenal torrents of energy into the pathetic shield the city would attempt to set up. The Lorle High Council would trust him. In the end, even Trask would. They were all rabbits looking around desperately for someone to defend them. They would hire him; they would pat him on the back and shake his hand; they would make him solemnly swear the Guardian Oath to struggle against all their enemies. And Glayne would promise to do all of these things. ”

“ But where were they getting it to broadcast? Only an infinite source of supply could do the job.
Paralyzed, he watched the battle screen. He was aware of the miatron blasters falling silent, one after another, as the straining driver atomics were diverted to hold the shield. Their sister Galactic's blasters had all fallen silent as all the power of her own huge drivers was shunted into the shield generators. Their own shield was trembling and shuddering under the inconceivable impact of the energies that surged at it from the Delban. ”

“ To the Delban leader's question Glayne replied cautiously, "The Guardians have landed on their feet in every major crisis for the last thousand years. Perhaps we want to land feet-first this time."
"That is quite understandable, Captain," replied Gort Bro-Doral, cautious in his turn.
"When one side in a battle has unlimited strength," Glayne continued, "the wise man has no difficulty in deciding whom he will support. ”

“ Glayne could do nothing more than stare helplessly. He did not even think to resist when the room filled with armed Delbans who went about the job of disarming them in a very silent and efficient fashion.
"Such a pity," remarked Gort Bro-Doral, glancing down at Ganser's charred and crumpled body. "Hoteh was my right hand, but the poor wretch was just too thorough. His own mind-conditioning device caught him in the end." He produced his sickly, explosive laugh and inclined his head to one of the armed Delbans. "Take it away," he murmured. ”

“ As the ramifications of Imperial Terra's plot came clear to him, Glayne realized with increasing urgency that he simply had to overcome the girl.
"You may be sure that your attack on Sterle II will not be in vain," came the girl's brittle tones. "Admiral Bardled will station units of the Imperial Terran Fleet in hyper-space with the purpose of cracking the wave length of the broadcast power and locating its source.
"Our plan is much cleaner and nobler than yours, is it not, Captain Glayne? You Stellar Guardians are all hard, ruthless fighters. You can take care of yourselves. ”

“ Brodis paused for an appreciable instant, then said, "Right, Captain," and cut off.
Glayne watched the globe of Sterle II diminish in his battle screen with deep satisfaction. The first step in his plan had been carried off with miraculous good fortune. Now the most pressing necessity was speed. Once the Algol was sufficiently far from mass to drop into sub-space, the mysterious power source of the Delbans would be only a couple of hours distant at the most. With Ganser under control and acting as a safe conduct, Glayne saw success dangling just within his fingers. ”

“ Within a few meters the attraction is so tremendous that we have great difficulty in anchoring the power drain machinery. But you will see for yourself in the Jewel Chamber."
The mono-car sighed to a halt and Selzi-Narfid ushered them graciously into a tapestried corridor. Glayne noticed that the gravity was just about Terran Standard. He also noticed that Selzi-Narfid, in spite of his flow of suave conversation, was worried. Suddenly a peculiar sensation of wrongness flared up in Glayne's mind and he knew that his battle-trained, preternatural intuition was at work. ”

“ Now its accumulated charge is so titanic that it defies conception.
"Some day those beautiful engines of the Tane Gods would have run down and the shield would have collapsed. Then our own universe would have been destroyed. The sudden release of such a vast energy potential would have caused a concussion which would literally warp our flat space into the fourth-dimensional sub-space.
"Now that can't happen. We are draining off that infinite potential and broadcasting it—flooding it—through sub-space to be received everywhere there is a Delban receiving antenna. The power is limitless. ”

“ The inner lock of the entrance port had slid shut behind the message craft. It was now or never, Glayne realized. He opened the atomic driver wide and the stubby launch shuddered for an instant, then lunged for the lock. The sudden thrust created constricting hands about Glayne's chest and he fought precariously on the edge of blacking out. For a brief instant Glayne was aware of the huge outer doors swinging shut before him—and then the air pressure struck them and flung the launch bodily through the narrow space left between them. ”

“ Some Sector must be thrown to the wolves. While the Delbans are occupied with that unfortunate Sector, we will have time to unravel their broadcast scramblers, build antennae of our own, and perhaps even locate their power transmitter. The Policy Organ has decided upon Lorle Sector. And it has decided that you, Glayne, are the man for the job."
Glayne had listened in stunned silence to Garstow. A protest rose automatically to his lips but he had crushed it back with a click of his booted heels. And now here he was in Lorle Capital with his Stellar class cruiser Algol ready for action. ”

“ In time of crisis, Captain Glayne, the Stellar Guardians invariably throw allies and friends to the dogs in order to gain time. This is common knowledge. So all we had to do was determine the direction of the Guardian move. We immediately thought of Lorle. And we even thought that you might be the man the Guardians would send, Glayne, because we have a complete file on your activities for the past ten years. We know that you have been on good terms with Delban brass since that successful exploring job you performed at Jorger Sun, five years ago. ”

“ As they progressed Glayne saw the tough, all-metal walls were more heavily buttressed with the massive beralloy supports. Selzi-Narfid saw the direction of his glance and said, "Those were necessary when we maneuvered the Jewel into the center of the discoid. You have no idea of what such a tremendous mass in a body the size of the Jewel can do when it is not balanced."
Glayne listened to the Admiral with just a part of his mind. His main attention was devoted to photographing mentally the warren of passages. Here and there he saw groups of Delban technicians, none of them armed. ”

“ Of them all, he was the only man Glayne admired. For thirty years he had maneuvered the nine-planet Lorle Sector through the treacherous shoals of Combine politics and never once had the cry of "boss" or "dictator" seriously been raised against him.
"I must confess," he began quietly, "that I do not myself understand fully the implications of this situation. I do know that the fact that Imperial Terra has lost two large battleships is inconsequential. The real point is that the Terran Combine is facing imminent destruction at the hands of Gort Bro-Doral and his Delban Empire. ”