pivoted, and left Steele suddenly alone in the small office.
He had hardly completed the all-units bulletin when the call-buzzer from Operations sounded. Within the next hour his six hundred men, his twenty small J-88 Lancers would be loaded to the fins with all the arms they could carry, and then....Fleetingly, the thought nagged at him. Was Zukow a coward--or right? Twenty tiny J-88s balanced against the lives of four billion people.... Yet there would be surprise, and the over-confidence of a powerful victor after an easy conquest. And more, there would be the will of a small band of men. He flipped up the buzzer-switch, and the Operations lieutenant appeared on his small desk viewer.
"Yes, lieutenant? Did your group have some difficulty in understanding my bulletin?"
"No, sir. We're getting things Space-shape at our end right now. But, sir--you said that twenty craft were to be prepared."
"Yes that's correct. All of them."
"But there will be only nineteen, sir. Major Zukow blasted off nearly a half-hour before your announcement, in a completely unarmed J-88 and--he said--on your authorization."
For a moment Steele said nothing. His mind seethed, yet he understood.
"Very well, lieutenant. You will stand by for a second bulletin."
The young officer's face faded from the screen, and Steele tried to think. Obvious, of course, but he wondered how much Zukow could be blamed. A frightened man. A coward, perhaps, doing what he thought was right. But it was _not_ right! And they must now act swiftly. For if the enemy were warned in sufficient time....Infinity to zero, Zukow had said, were his odds. Perhaps. But there would be nineteen J-88s, armed to the fins....
They had kept Zukow waiting three hours after he landed. He had immediately been placed under guard upon setting the unarmed Lancer down at National Spaceport, and they had not believed him until his shouts of protest had been overheard by one of their officers. It had almost been for nothing--But now they were taking him to the Pentagon; into Taylor's own suite of offices. And Taylor was there. A different-looking Taylor than Zukow remembered--no longer the bulky, solid-looking figure. Wan, drawn, as were those few of his staff working with him under the orders of the alien commander. It was the alien who spoke. Taylor sat white and silent.
"My officers inform me that you have attempted to convince them of an impossible story, Earthman," he said. He was man-like, only taller. His head was bald and like a fleshless skull, and there was the glitter of a strong intelligence behind the widely-spaced double-lidded red eyes. And Zukow repeated his story. Shamefully, fearfully, he told it. And as he did, new color flushed Taylor's lined face, then subsided to the whiteness of helpless anger.

 Prev. P 9/13 next