But try as he would, as he watched the planet approaching, Ben Trefon could not imagine what life on a planet such as Earth could be like. Earthmen were planet-bound; not only were their skills in space crude and feeble, they were bound by a fear of space as real as it was incredible to the Spacers. More than once Ben had tried to imagine what it would be like to have been born in one of the steel cities on Earth, to grow up in the underground nurseries and recreation halls, rarely seeing the brightness of the sun at the surface, or breathing the unprocessed air outside, living from birth until death bound to the surface of a single planet without a breath of hope of ever leaving it. More than once he had tried to imagine how Earthmen must feel, living in constant terror of invasion from the skies, with every movement of their lives dictated by a rigid martial law that barely left them freedom to breathe.
But try as he would, he could not imagine it. Of course, he had never actually set foot on Earth before.
He had never actually seen an Earthman, and he certainly had never talked to one. But he knew about them, he thought. He knew a good deal indeed. He had heard of their cruelty and viciousness, he knew of their world of cold steel and humming machines, of the clatter of firearms and the test-firing of their great anti-aircraft batteries. He knew of the Earthmen’s fear of space, even though he had never been able to understand it, and he had heard of the cruel retaliatory raids and disciplinary parties Earth had sent out into space from time to time in an effort to beat back the harassment of the Spacers. He had heard that the greatest bravery, the ultimate courage that an Earthman could exhibit was to shoot down a Spacer during a raid. He had heard other stories, too, stories that were hard to believe of civilized people, yet stories which fitted into the rest of the picture of Earthmen in his mind: stories of Spacers captured alive during raids, imprisoned in steel cages and hauled through the corridors and passageways of Earth’s cities like animals before they were finally burned in public executions.
There had always been such stories, and the war between Earthmen and the men of space had dragged on as long as he could remember, with endless series of blows and counter-blows, endless successions of casualty lists following the raids, and the mournful singing of the maukis in memory of the men who never came back. Every Spacer knew that attempts had been made repeatedly to make peace with the men of Earth, to do away with the raids and to permit peaceful commerce and intercommunication between those who lived beyond the atmosphere of the mother planet and those who lived on the surface. Yet every attempt had failed, and the war continued.
Static burst from the radio at his elbow, and Ben awoke from his thoughts. The planet nearly filled his view screen now, growing larger by the minute, and the raider ships were falling into an orbital pattern as the Raid Commander in the flagship broke radio silence. “All right, men,” his voice came through sharply.
“They’re aware of us now. All hands stand by your tracer rockets. They’ll throw up a barrage as soon as they have us tracked. Now stand by for a final checkout.”
Ben corrected his controls for drift in the squadron formation and turned his ear to the loudspeaker as the commander began running down the list of squads for the final make-ready check.
“Cruiser squadrons, stand ready. Number one sound off.”
“First squad ready, sir.”
“Duties?”
“Antigravity generators are fully functional, sir. We are warming up the gyros.”
“Then check those couplings again. You won’t have time to fiddle with them when we reach the strike point. Next?”
“Second squad ready, sir.”
Ben listened as the fleet of ships sounded off in turn. They were entering a braking pattern now, nosing down into the thicker layers of the planet’s atmosphere. One by one the squad leaders answered muster, making no attempt at secrecy now. Ben heard his own squad leader, commanding about thirty ships, sound off in response to the muster.
“Seventh squad ready, sir.”
“Do your men have their target in mind?”
“Yes, sir. Top level recreation hall near the south city margin. Five red flares to guide us in.”
“Then good hunting,” the commander said. “And remember: no more violence than necessary. Use your tangle-guns. Those girls aren’t maukis yet. Don’t make it tough on the indoctrination crews.” Suddenly, down below, four flares of light appeared against the black disk of the planet, and a warning signal began to buzz on Ben’s control panel. The commander’s checkout was interrupted by a burst of static as another voice broke in sharply. “Now hear this, all ships! Stand by for missile barrage. Ready your homing shells. Those are big ones, and they’ll have warheads.” The flares on the surface of the planet seemed to grow larger, moving in a curving trajectory up toward the orbit of the Spacer ships. Then, one by one, the main boosters of the ground-to-air missiles burned out and the smaller guidance jets were flaring on and off as the missiles’ sensitive “noses” began searching out their targets in the onrushing fleet. Ben gripped his crash bar tightly, watching for some sign of Spacer counterfire. The missile flares were lost from view behind him now, but he knew they were still coming, moving up swiftly toward the carefully precalculated interception point, each carrying a cargo of death for any invading ship it contacted. There was another salvo of the great missiles from below, and then another, and still Ben watched and waited for the Spacer cruisers’ answering fire.
And then it came: a dozen sparks of light appearing in the blackness around him as the dark Spacer ships let go their defensive barrage. A swarm of interceptor missiles carrying tracers zoomed down in a great arc toward the oncoming warheads. In his rear view screen Ben watched the silent panorama of red lights moving against the blackness. The Spacer barrage was late; already the warheads were within pickup distance of the lead ships. And if a warhead missile got close enough to enter the invading fleet’s approach pattern…
Somewhere below there was a violent flare of yellow light, and then another. Two great fireballs appeared like apparitions in the blackness as Spacer rockets at last reached the attacking missiles and detonated their hydrogen warheads harmlessly in space. Moments later came a third burst below them, too close for comfort, and a few seconds before interception point the fourth exploded. Against the enormous orange flash Ben could see the Spacer ships silhouetted as they moved relentlessly down into their landing orbit.
Safe from the first four! But this was only the beginning. Missile flares were visible across the whole surface of the planet now, and on a sharp command five of the Spacer cruisers dropped out of formation, moving down to a rear-guard position twenty miles below and fifty miles behind the rest of the fleet.
Every Spacer ship carried a variety of defensive and offensive missiles, both air-to-air and air-to-ground, but the cruisers were the defensive work horses of the Spacer fleet, prepared to stand off the most vicious ground-to-air attacks. Now Ben could see salvo after salvo of air-to-air missiles bursting from the bellies of the cruisers and zooming down to intercept the clumsy Earth weapons. Fleetingly, Ben thought of his father’s warning about some new defense plan the Earthmen had, and he smiled to himself. There was nothing new about this. The same slow, awkward missiles, the same laborious attempts at interception that the Earthmen always tried, with equipment so far outclassed by the swift, sensitive Spacer defensive weapons that it was almost laughable. Not quite laughable, because a few always got through, and a few Spacer ships always exploded in blazing flares of orange light, before the fleet got down below the tactical range of the great missiles. Even so, the defensive attempt was feeble and essentially fruitless, and that was fine, Ben thought. If they want to throw away their hardware this way, that’s up to them.