«I… obey, my lord. The ps-s-s-sychomachines w-will show how well I m-mean to obey—»
«Good. I want you to prepare a dossier on Umung. Use the machines to help you remember everything. Correlate it with all information available in Intelligence files. Submit the complete report to me within an eight-day.»
«I… I will try, l-lord—»
Hurulta turned back toward the door. No one dared speak to him as he went down the corridor, but his mind was busy.
Umung—yes. It had real possibilities. From all he had heard of it, Umung was a treasure chest. He had to prevent Alak’s using it, of course—
But the Patrol! As long as they were in this vicinity, he could not declare war on the League. That might be just the excuse they wanted. He’d fight them if he caught them, but until then it was safer to wait, consolidate his victories.
But it wouldn’t take much to occupy Umung. Not if its natives were as docile as all reports had it. And then he could show some real progress to those fat money barons. Already the war would have begun to pay off, and they’d support him in further schemes, let him build up his own power and prestige until the day he turned on them and broke them.
Umung, yes. By all the hells, yes!
Imagine a creature somewhat like an ant—only in general outline, to be sure. It stands a meter tall on two horny legs whose cilia, rubbed together, are its voice organs. There is one pair of tentacles, ending in supple boneless fingers; above them are the true arms, and there is a small stalk on the wrist of each arm holding an eye with microscopic vision. The head is faceless, little more than a set of jaws and a pair of larger eye-stalks for normal seeing. The creature is utterly obedient to the mass-mind of its hivelike community, a patient, tireless, delicate worker. Apart from food and reproduction, its only need is work. Once you have persuaded the mass-mind—embodied in the queen—that it is to its advantage to do as you say, a hundred thousand little brown artisans are ready to slave to the death for you.
Umung is not a large planet. Its atmosphere is thin and dry, its landscape mostly dreary plains. The Ulugani soldiers stationed there grumbled about its dullness. But not many were needed, and soldiers have always complained; it is a healthy sign.
Technicians were required in large numbers, to educate the Umungi in the use of machine tools. But the hive dwellers learned fast. Goln of Aldebaran was invaluable, he knew the ins and outs of native ways. Before long, a good part of the entire planet was ready to start producing for Ulugan.
It produced!
«All right, colonel, don’t just stand there! Give me your report.»
«If it please you, lord, my scout squadron was investigating the Junnuzhik System as per orders—»
«I know! We have to watch every planet of this cluster now, we never know where the Patrol may sneak in next—Well, what is it? Don’t tell me they’re trying to build another base!»
«No, lord. Our intelligence unit captured some leading natives of Ilwar for questioning—»
«Ilwar! What do you mean? I can’t remember every stinking native name for every worthless little area of a thousand inhabited planets.»
«The world is Junnuzhik III, lord, the only inhabited one in the system. The natives are centauroids—big scaly fellows, beaked heads, crests—Oh, yes, I see that my lord remembers now. Well, Ilwar is the leading nation on the planet. They’ve attained a petroleum technology, are pretty good metallurgists, and so on. Under pressure, it was found out that the Patrol has been dickering with them. Wants them to supply several million troops, presumably for an invasion of our planet.»
«Patrol have any luck?»
«Well, lord, the natives are thoroughly anti-Ulugan. They assume that if we aren’t stopped, we’ll conquer them.»
«True enough. But… oh, and damn! We’ll just have to take over the planet.»
«They’re tough warriors, lord.»
«I know. And occupying a whole planet is a major operation. But we can’t simply sterilize; we’ll need it ourselves in the long run. And we must take over the entire world now, colonel. At the very least, we must garrison thousands of key points, or the Patrol ships can simply sneak in and pick up their recruits. At this time, too!»
«Lord—»
«Shut up: File a complete report. Now get out of here. Hello, hello, give me the General Staff building… Commander Tuac? Ready your planners, boy. We’re going to invade still another world.»
«Tuac? Listen and obey.»
«Yes, lord.»
«You know the planet Yarnaz IV?»
«Hm-m-m… let me think, lord.»
«Don’t. You’re not capable of it—you and your planning section!»
«Lord, how could we know the Hwari would be such guerrilla fighters? Even under extreme difficulties, we’re carrying all the conquest—it’s just going more slowly than we had anticipated. If we could only have more troops, more supplies—»
«Shut up, I said! We haven’t even finished with Tukatan itself, thanks to that Patrol. Junnuzhik will have to make do with what we can spare. Now listen, or I’ll have your head. Yarnaz is a red dwarf sun about fifteen light-years from Tumu. Its fourth planet is trackless desert, poisonous air, venomous life. Nevertheless, our checkup reveals that the Patrol has been there. Not a base. They’ve been mining near the equator. Why?»
«Lord, I can’t say. Unless they wanted supplies—fissionables, perhaps—»
«I checked up on that, idiot. Yarnaz IV is about as poor in natural resources as empty space itself.»
«Could it be a camouflage, lord? A device to divert our attention from their real activities?»
«It may well be. But, we don’t know! The Patrol seems to have studied the primitive planets of our cluster better than we have ourselves. Furthermore, they have the natives of a million worlds to choose from in making up their crews. Doubtless there is at least one race in the League to whom Yarnaz IV is just like home. We can’t know where their real advantage lies.»
«Well, lord, it… it looks as if we’ll have to establish garrisons there.»
«I’m glad you’ve seen that much. How soon can you send a force?»
«The planning—Lord, we’re getting bogged down. There’s just too much to handle. Even one world is a major problem in strategy, tactics, logistics—»
«Nevertheless, Yarnaz IV shall be occupied within one month. Or do you want your head adorning a pole in Market Square?»
Fear was cold along the spine of Hurulta as he looked at the being in the cage.
It seemed harmless enough—a small kangaroolike mammal, with big ears on its round, blunt-muzzled head. The sensitive four-fingered hands spoke of intelligence, the basic tool-making ability. There was no menace in the soft brown eyes.
Nevertheless Hurulta was afraid. It took all the discipline he had to face that creature and hold his own visage expressionless.
«It was caught on the fringes of Dengavash City, lord, just after the riots there,» said the police officer. «Obviously it was the thing responsible. It creates an aura of terror.»
Hurulta forced his tongue to shape coherent words. «Where’s it from?»
«We checked up, lord. It’s from Gyreion, as the explorers have named it—a planet not unlike ours, on the fringes of our cluster. This is one of the natives. They haven’t been studied much, but seem to be a timid paleolithic race. Telepaths, though.»
«I… see. And when they’re frightened, as must happen rather easily, they radiate the fear-impulse and our minds pick it up.»
«Yes, lord. We think a Patrol sneak-boat must have taken a few and dropped them here on Ulugan. We’ll soon round up the others and we’ll be sure.»