THE LAST VICTORY

BY TOM GODWIN

He had only two aims in life: first, to get what he wanted; and after that to enjoy it. But to achieve the one he'd have to give up the other ... or would he?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The transport ship, bound for Capella with Outlander colonists from Earth and Frontier Guards from Arcturus, struck the hyperspace vortex without warning. It seized her, wrenching and twisting her, and flung her across its gigantic rim at thousands of times the speed of light. She emerged into normal space in an unknown region of the galaxy, broken and driveless, but near enough a planet that she could descend by means of her antigravity plates before the last of her air was gone.

It was sunset when she settled heavily to earth on a grassy slope beside a forest, leaning at a dangerous angle with only her failing antigravity plates to hold her from falling. The dead had been disposed of in space and the living filed out of her: fifty Outlander men, women and children, eighteen ship's crewmen, and ten Frontier Guards.

The Guard officer and ship's captain came last, of equal rank and already appraising each other with cold speculation.

The Howling things in the dark forest were coming closer. Thane listened as he watched Curry, the ship's captain, approach across the strip of land that separated the two camps; standing back from his fire as he waited, where he would make an uncertain target for an assassin's blaster.

No one could be seen near any of the fires in the two camps on the hill. Only the unarmed Outlanders, at their fires in the swale below, moved about without wariness. And it was not yet three hours from the landing of the ship.

Curry stopped before him, restrained anger on his arrogantly handsome face.

"You failed to report to me and turn your Frontier Guards over to my command as you were ordered," he said.

"Since your rank is no higher than mine I saw no reason to do so," Thane answered.

Curry smiled, very thinly. "Perhaps I can show you a reason."

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