But when she talked drearily of the landers that were being prepared to move into Low Earth Orbit he sat up in shock. He glanced at Boyle, bewildered. “But—what are they going to do there?”
Boyle said succinctly, “Bombardment.” He turned off the tape, waiting for Lysander to speak.
“You mean like bomber airplanes over Hiroshima? But the Hakh’hli don’t have anything like bombs—I’m sure of that! almost sure,” he amended.
Boyle was shaking his head. “They don’t need bombs, Lysander. They’re there already. Don’t you remember, we talked about the possibility at the science center? Eighteen thousand big objects in orbit, and the Hakh’hli can time them so they all hit cities.”
“Like Albuquerque,” Marguery put in. “Like what almost happened to Perth.”
“And if that didn’t force us to submit,” said Boyle, “you know what they’ve got in reserve. The entire asteroid belt.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he sighed and looked straight at Sandy. “There’s a lot more, if you want to hear it.”
“I don’t think I do,” Lysander said bitterly. “I’ve had enough bad news for one day.”
Marguery said diffidently, “It isn’t all bad, you know. That thing they’re building? It’s just a communications antenna. Polly said they haven’t heard anything from their home world in centuries, and they’re hoping with a big enough antenna they can at least hear if they’re still broadcasting.”
“They’re lost, you know,” Boyle said brutally. “They’re getting desperate, too. So what about it, Lysander? The ball’s in your court now. Make up your mind. Which side are you on?”
“Do I have any choice?” Lysander flared.
“Not much. You can have an accident as easily as Hippolyta. But if you want to help us—”
“Help you how?”
Boyle hesitated. “We have a plan,” he said. “We can make it work with or without your help, but it will go better with it. That big ship is pretty vulnerable right now. But we don’t have a lot of time. Those Hakh’hli landing vessels could be getting ready to nudge some big pieces into place right now, targeting Seattle or Hudson City.”
Lysander looked at each of them in turn, finishing with Marguery Darp. There was nothing to read in her face. She was quite expressionless as she waited for him to speak.
“Tell me what the plan is,” said Lysander at last. It was his first venture into adult guile.
Chapter 22
Three thousand years is a lot of history. Three thousand years ago on Earth history had barely begun. Civilization was a collection of tiny principalities in the Fertile Crescent, and neither China nor Ancient Greece had been invented yet. The three-thousand-year history of the Hakh’hli is just as long and just as cloudy in its origins. The Hakh’hli know that before that time their remote ancestors lived on one or another of a consortium of planets—four of them, in three separate stellar systems—and deployed immense powers. Powers enough to launch a dozen ships like their own, to scour the Galaxy for new homes for the Hakh’hli race. That was their Golden Age, they know. What they also know is that the history of the three thousand years since the ship first began to swim the spaces between the stars has been not golden at all; it is a history of monotonous voyages and fruitless investigations. It is, to be more exact, a history of three thousand long, uninterrupted years of failure.
The flight back to the lander site was in no slow, comfortable blimp. They were in a hurry. Their plane was a high-energy supersonic jet, and it crossed the North American continent, twelve miles up, in an hour and forty minutes. It was not a pleasant trip. The acceleration as they took off and climbed was enough to push even Sandy back in his seat, and the other human passengers were immobilized until the jet leveled off.
Even then there was not much light conversation. Marguery Darp was lost in her own thoughts. Lysander, sitting by one of the tiny windows, spent most of his time gazing out at what could be seen of country sliding past below.
Hamilton Boyle had donned his InterSec uniform for the job, leather boots, holstered pistol, cap, and all. It was as though he needed to be reassured of his official position. When they were flying almost level he turned to Lysander and demanded harshly, “Do you know what you’re supposed to do?”
Lysander turned back from the window. “How could I not?” he asked. “You’ve told me over and over. My job is to get the Hakh’hli out of the landing craft. You apprehend them. Then I turn it over to you.”
“To the human race, Sandy,” Boyle corrected.
“What you didn’t tell me,” Sandy said, “was what you’re going to do with the lander after you get it.”
“We’ll study it, man! We have to find out what kind of technology we’re up against.”
Sandy nodded as though he had expected that answer. He wasn’t signaling acceptance of what Boyle had said, only that he hadn’t expected to be told the truth. He pursed his lips, gazing innocently at Hamilton Boyle. “You know,” he said, “a suspicious person might think you had a different reason. You might be thinking of using the lander to ram the Hakh’hli ship.”
The expression on Boyle’s face told him all he had to know. When Sandy turned to look at Marguery Darp her own expression was dismal. “Oh, hell,” she said. “We might as well start trusting each other, Ham! Sandy, you’re almost right. InterSec has half a dozen fusion warheads hidden away, just in case. Once you turn the lander over to us, Ham wants to put one of them in it and take off. But not to ram it, Sandy! Not unless we really have to.”
“No? Then what?” he asked politely.
“Just threaten it, Sandy! That’s all. They’ll have to surrender; the big ship’s a sitting duck up there, with its drive motors off.”
“I see,” Lysander said noncommitally, and stopped there.
Boyle gave him ten seconds, and then demanded, “What’s the matter? Don’t you think it would work?”
Lysander thought it over carefully. “I never heard of a Hakh’hli surrendering,” he said, “but I guess there’s a first time for everything. As you say, they wouldn’t have much choice, would they? Also,” he went on, struck by a thought, “you probably don’t have to bother with putting a bomb on the lander. Just crashing into the ship would do it, if you rammed it in the drive-systems area. Imagine strange matter splashing around the ship! Of course, whoever piloted the lander would die, too.”
“Do you suppose that would be a problem? There are always human beings who are willing to die for patriotic reasons.”
“So I have been told,” Lysander agreed. “Only—”
“Only what?” Boyle demanded harshly.
Sandy shrugged. “Only I don’t see what your next step is going to be. What are you going to do with the Hakh’hli after they all surrender?”
“We’ll take them prisoner!”
“Yes, I see that much. Then what?”
“Then it’s up to the civil authorities,” Boyle snapped. “Don’t worry about it, Lysander! We’re not going to shoot them. There are rules about the treatment of prisoners of war.”
“Yes, you put them in concentration camps,” Lysander nodded. “How long do you keep them there?”