Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






Transcriber's Note: This e-text was produced from Analog Science
Fact & Fiction, January, 1961. Extensive research did not uncover
any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.



_The highest treason of all is not so easy to define--and be it noted
carefully that the true traitor in this case was not singular, but very
plural ..._


THE HIGHEST ... TREASON


By

RANDALL GARRETT


Illustrated by Gardner




_The Prisoner_


The two rooms were not luxurious, but MacMaine hadn't expected that
they would be. The walls were a flat metallic gray, unadorned and
windowless. The ceilings and floors were simply continuations of the
walls, except for the glow-plates overhead. One room held a small
cabinet for his personal possessions, a wide, reasonably soft bed, a
small but adequate desk, and, in one corner, a cubicle that contained
the necessary sanitary plumbing facilities.

The other room held a couch, two big easy-chairs, a low table, some
bookshelves, a squat refrigerator containing food and drink for his
occasional snacks--his regular meals were brought in hot from the main
kitchen--and a closet that contained his clothing--the insignialess
uniforms of a Kerothi officer.

No, thought Sebastian MacMaine, it was not luxurious, but neither did
it look like the prison cell it was.

There was comfort here, and even the illusion of privacy, although
there were TV pickups in the walls, placed so that no movement in
either room would go unnoticed. The switch which cut off the soft white
light from the glow plates did not cut off the infrared radiation which
enabled his hosts to watch him while he slept. Every sound was heard
and recorded.

But none of that bothered MacMaine. On the contrary, he was glad of it.
He wanted the Kerothi to know that he had no intention of escaping or
hatching any plot against them.

He had long since decided that, if things continued as they had, Earth
would lose the war with Keroth, and Sebastian MacMaine had no desire
whatever to be on the losing side of the greatest war ever fought. The
problem now was to convince the Kerothi that he fully intended to fight
with them, to give them the full benefit of his ability as a military
strategist, to do his best to win every battle for Keroth.

And that was going to be the most difficult task of all.

A telltale glow of red blinked rapidly over the door, and a soft chime
pinged in time with it.

MacMaine smiled inwardly, although not a trace of it showed on his
broad-jawed, blocky face. To give him the illusion that he was a guest
rather than a prisoner, the Kerothi had installed an announcer at the
door and invariably used it. Not once had any one of them ever simply
walked in on him.

"Come in," MacMaine said.

He was seated in one of the easy-chairs in his "living room," smoking a
cigarette and reading a book on the history of Keroth, but he put the
book down on the low table as a tall Kerothi came in through the
doorway.

MacMaine allowed himself a smile of honest pleasure. To most Earthmen,
"all the Carrot-skins look alike," and, MacMaine admitted honestly to
himself, he hadn't yet trained himself completely to look beyond the
strangenesses that made the Kerothi different from Earthmen and see the
details that made them different from each other. But this was one
Kerothi that MacMaine would never mistake for any other.

"Tallis!" He stood up and extended both hands in the Kerothi fashion.
The other did the same, and they clasped hands for a moment. "How are
your guts?" he added in Kerothic.

"They function smoothly, my sibling-by-choice," answered Space General
Polan Tallis. "And your own?"

"Smoothly, indeed. It's been far too long a time since we have
touched."

The Kerothi stepped back a pace and looked the Earthman up and down.
"You look healthy enough--for a prisoner. You're treated well, then?"

"Well enough. Sit down, my sibling-by-choice." MacMaine waved toward
the couch nearby. The general sat down and looked around the apartment.

"Well, well. You're getting preferential treatment, all right. This is
as good as you could expect as a battleship commander. Maybe you're
being trained for the job."

MacMaine laughed, allowing the touch of sardonicism that he felt to be
heard in the laughter. "I might have hoped so once, Tallis. But I'm
afraid I have simply come out even. I have traded nothing for nothing."

General Tallis reached into the pocket of his uniform jacket and took
out the thin aluminum case that held the Kerothi equivalent of
cigarettes. He took one out, put it between his lips, and lit it with
the hotpoint that was built into the case.

MacMaine took an Earth cigarette out of the package on the table and
allowed Tallis to light it for him. The pause and the silence, MacMaine
knew, were for a purpose. He waited. Tallis had something to say, but
he was allowing the Earthman to "adjust to surprise." It was one of the
fine points of Kerothi etiquette.

                     *      *      *      *      *

A sudden silence on the part of one participant in a conversation,
under these particular circumstances, meant that something unusual was
coming up, and the other person was supposed to take the opportunity to
brace himself for shock.

It could mean anything. In the Kerothi Space Forces, a superior
informed a junior officer of the junior's forthcoming promotion by just
such tactics. But the same tactics were used when informing a person of
the death of a loved one.

In fact, MacMaine was well aware that such a period of silence was _de
rigueur_ in a Kerothi court, just before sentence was pronounced, as
well as a preliminary to a proposal of marriage by a Kerothi male to
the _light of his love.

MacMaine could do nothing but wait. It would be indelicate to speak
until Tallis felt that he was ready for the surprise.

It was not, however, indelicate to watch Tallis' face closely; it was
expected. Theoretically, one was supposed to be able to discern, at
least, whether the news was good or bad.

With Tallis, it was impossible to tell, and MacMaine knew it would be
useless to read the man's expression. But he watched, nonetheless.

In one way, Tallis' face was typically Kerothi. The orange-pigmented
skin and the bright, grass-green eyes were common to all Kerothi. The
planet Keroth, like Earth, had evolved several different "races" of
humanoid, but, unlike Earth, the distinction was not one of color.

MacMaine took a drag off his cigarette and forced himself to keep his
mind off whatever it was that Tallis might be about to say. He was
already prepared for a death sentence--even a death sentence by
torture. Now, he felt, he could not be shocked. And, rather than build
up the tension within himself to an unbearable degree, he thought about
Tallis rather than about himself.

Tallis, like the rest of the Kerothi, was unbelievably humanoid. There
were internal differences in the placement of organs, and differences
in the functions of those organs. For instance, it took two separate
organs to perform the same function that the liver performed in
Earthmen, and the kidneys were completely absent, that function being
performed by special tissues in the lower colon, which meant that the
Kerothi were more efficient with water-saving than Earthmen, since the
waste products were excreted as relatively dry solids through an
all-purpose cloaca.

But, externally, a Kerothi would need only a touch of plastic surgery
and some makeup to pass as an Earthman in a stage play. Close up, of
course, the job would be much more difficult--as difficult as a Negro
trying to disguise himself as a Swede or _vice versa__.

But Tallis was--

                     *      *      *      *      *

"I would have a word," Tallis said, shattering MacMaine's carefully
neutral train of thought. It was a standard opening for breaking the
pause of adjustment, but it presaged good news rather than bad.

"I await your word," MacMaine said. Even after all this time, he still
felt vaguely proud of his ability to handle the subtle idioms of
Kerothic.

"I think," Tallis said carefully, "that you may be offered a commission
in the Kerothi Space Forces."

Sebastian MacMaine let out his breath slowly, and only then realized
that he had been holding it. "I am grateful, my sibling-by-choice," he
said.

General Tallis tapped his cigarette ash into a large blue ceramic
ashtray. MacMaine could smell the acrid smoke from the alien plant
matter that burned in the Kerothi cigarette--a chopped-up inner bark
from a Kerothi tree. MacMaine could no more smoke a Kerothi cigarette
than Tallis could smoke tobacco, but the two were remarkably similar in
their effects.

The "surprise" had been delivered. Now, as was proper, Tallis would
move adroitly all around the subject until he was ready to return to it
again.

"You have been with us ... how long, Sepastian?" he asked.

"Two and a third _Kronet_."

Tallis nodded. "Nearly a year of your time."

MacMaine smiled. Tallis was as proud of his knowledge of Earth
terminology as MacMaine was proud of his mastery of Kerothic.

"Lacking three weeks," MacMaine said.

"What? Three ... oh, yes. Well. A long time," said Tallis.
_
"The Board of Strategy asked me to tell you," Tallis continued. "After
all, my recommendation was partially responsible for the decision." He
paused for a moment, but it was merely a conversational hesitation, not
a formal hiatus.

"It was a hard decision, Sepastian--you must realize that. We have been
at war with your race for ten years now. We have taken thousands of
Earthmen as prisoners, and many of them have agreed to co-operate with
us. But, with one single exception, these prisoners have been the moral
dregs of your civilization. They have been men who had no pride of
race, no pride of society, no pride of self. They have been weak,
self-centered, small-minded, cowards who had no thought for Earth and
Earthmen, but only for themselves.

"Not," he said hurriedly, "that all of them are that way--or even the
majority. Most of them have the minds of warriors, although, I must
say, not _strong__ warriors."

That last, MacMaine knew, was a polite concession. The Kerothi had no
respect for Earthmen. And MacMaine could hardly blame them. For three
long centuries, the people of Earth had had nothing to do but indulge
themselves in the pleasures of material wealth. It was a wonder that
any of them had any moral fiber left.

"But none of those who had any strength agreed to work with us," Tallis
went on. "With one exception. You."

"Am I weak, then?" MacMaine asked.

General Tallis shook his head in a peculiarly humanlike gesture. "No.
No, you are not. And that is what has made us pause for three years."
His grass-green eyes looked candidly into MacMaine's own. "You aren't
the type of person who betrays his own kind. It looks like a trap.
After a whole year, the Board of Strategy still isn't sure that there
is no trap."

Tallis stopped, leaned forward, and ground out the stub of his
cigarette in the blue ashtray. Then his eyes again sought MacMaine's.

"If it were not for what I, personally, know about you, the Board of
Strategy would not even consider your proposition."

"I take it, then, that they have considered it?" MacMaine asked with a
grin.

"As I said, Sepastian," Tallis said, "you have won your case. After
almost a year of your time, your decision has been justified."

MacMaine lost his grin. "I am grateful, Tallis," he said gravely. "I
think you must realize that it was a difficult decision to make."

His thoughts went back, across long months of time and longer
light-years of space, to the day when that decision had been made.




_The Decision__


Colonel Sebastian MacMaine didn't feel, that morning, as though this
day were different from any other. The sun, faintly veiled by a few
wisps of cloud, shone as it always had; the guards at the doors of the
Space Force Administration Building saluted him as usual; his brother
officers nodded politely, as they always did; his aide greeted him with
the usual "Good morning, sir."

The duty list lay on his desk, as it had every morning for years.
Sebastian MacMaine felt tense and a little irritated with himself, but
he felt nothing that could be called a premonition.

When he read the first item on the duty list, his irritation became a
little stronger.

"_Interrogate Kerothi general.__"

The interrogation duty had swung round to him again. He didn't want to
talk to General Tallis. There was something about the alien that
bothered him, and he couldn't place exactly what it was.

Earth had been lucky to capture the alien officer. In a space war,
there's usually very little left to capture after a battle--especially
if your side lost the battle.

On the other hand, the Kerothi general wasn't so lucky. The food that
had been captured with him would run out in less than six months, and
it was doubtful that he would survive on Earth food. It was equally
doubtful that any more Kerothi food would be captured.

For two years, Earth had been fighting the Kerothi, and for two years
Earth had been winning a few minor skirmishes and losing the major
battles. The Kerothi hadn't hit any of the major colonies yet, but they
had swallowed up outpost after outpost, and Earth's space fleet was
losing ships faster than her factories could turn them out. The hell of
it was that nobody on Earth seemed to be very much concerned about it
at all.

MacMaine wondered why he let it concern him. If no one else was
worried, why did he let it bother him? He pushed the thought from his
mind and picked up the questionnaire form that had been made out for
that morning's session with the Kerothi general. Might as well get it
over with.

He glanced down the list of further duties for the day. It looked as
though the routine interrogation of the Kerothi general was likely to
provide most of the interest in the day's work at that.

He took the dropchute down to the basement of the building, to the
small prison section where the alien officer was being held. The guards
saluted nonchalantly as he went in. The routine questioning sessions
were nothing new to them.

MacMaine turned the lock on the prisoner's cell door and went in. Then
he came to attention and saluted the Kerothi general. He was probably
the only officer in the place who did that, he knew; the others treated
the alien general as though he were a criminal. Worse, they treated him
as though he were a petty thief or a common pickpocket--criminal, yes,
but of a definitely inferior type.
_
General Tallis, as always, stood and returned the salute. "Cut mawnik,
Cunnel MacMaine," he said. The Kerothi language lacked many of the
voiced consonants of English and Russian, and, as a result, Tallis' use
of _B__, _D__, _G__, _J__, _V__, and _Z__ made them come out as _P__,
_T__, _K__, _CH__, _F__, and _S__. The English _R__, as it is
pronounced in _run__ or _rat__, eluded him entirely, and he pronounced
it only when he could give it the guttural pronunciation of the German
_R__. The terminal _NG__ always came out as _NK__. The nasal _M__ and
_N_ were a little more drawn out than in English, but they were easily
understandable.

                     *      *      *      *      *

"Good morning, General Tallis," MacMaine said. "Sit down. How do you
feel this morning?"

The general sat again on the hard bunk that, aside from the single
chair, was the only furniture in the small cell. "Ass well ass coot pe
expectet. I ket ferry little exercisse. I ... how iss it set? ... I
pecome soft? Soft? Iss correct?"

"Correct. You've learned our language very well for so short a time."

The general shrugged off the compliment. "Wen it iss a matteh of learrn
in orrter to surfife, one learrnss."

"You think, then, that your survival has depended on your learning our
language?"

The general's orange face contrived a wry smile. "Opfiously. Your
people fill not learn Kerothic. If I cannot answerr questionss, I am
uff no use. Ass lonk ass I am uff use, I will liff. Not?"

MacMaine decided he might as well spring his bomb on the Kerothi
officer now as later. "I am not so certain but that you might have
stretched out your time longer if you had forced us to learn Kerothic,
general," he said in Kerothic. He knew his Kerothic was bad, since it
had been learned from the Kerothi spaceman who had been captured with
the general, and the man had been badly wounded and had survived only
two weeks. But that little bit of basic instruction, plus the work he
had done on the books and tapes from the ruined Kerothi ship, had
helped him.
_
"Ah?" The general blinked in surprise. Then he smiled. "Your accent,"
he said in Kerothic, "is atrocious, but certainly no worse than mine
when I speak your _Inklitch_. I suppose you intend to question me in
Kerothic now, eh? In the hope that I may reveal more in my own tongue?"

"Possibly you may," MacMaine said with a grin, "but I learned it for my
own information."

"For your own what? Oh. I see. Interesting. I know no others of your
race who would do such a thing. Anything which is difficult is beneath
them."

"Not so, general. I'm not unique. There are many of us who don't think
that way."

The general shrugged. "I do not deny it. I merely say that I have met
none. Certainly they do not tend to go into military service. Possibly
that is because you are not a race of fighters. It takes a fighter to
tackle the difficult just because it is difficult."

MacMaine gave him a short, hard laugh. "Don't you think getting
information out of _you__ is difficult? And yet, we tackle that."

"Not the same thing at all. Routine. You have used no pressure. No
threats, no promises, no torture, no stress."

MacMaine wasn't quite sure of his translation of the last two negative
phrases. "You mean the application of physical pain? That's barbaric."

"I won't pursue the subject," the general said with sudden irony.

"I can understand that. But you can rest assured that we would never do
such a thing. It isn't civilized. Our civil police do use certain drugs
to obtain information, but we have so little knowledge of Kerothi body
chemistry that we hesitate to use drugs on you."

"The application of stress, you say, is not civilized. Not, perhaps,
according to your definition of"--he used the English word--"_cifiliced__.
No. Not _cifiliced_--but it works." Again he smiled. "I said that I have
become soft since I have been here, but I fear that your civilization
is even softer."

"A man can lie, even if his arms are pulled off or his feet crushed,"
MacMaine said stiffly.

The Kerothi looked startled. When he spoke again, it was in English. "I
will say no morr. If you haff questionss to ask, ko ahet. I will not
take up time with furtherr talkink."

A little angry with himself and with the general, MacMaine spent the
rest of the hour asking routine questions and getting nowhere, filling
up the tape in his minicorder with the same old answers that others had
gotten.

He left, giving the general a brisk salute and turning before the
general had time to return it.

Back in his office, he filed the tape dutifully and started on Item Two
of the duty list: _Strategy Analysis of Battle Reports_.

Strategy analysis always irritated and upset him. He knew that if he'd
just go about it in the approved way, there would be no
irritation--only boredom. But he was constitutionally incapable of
working that way. In spite of himself, he always played a little game
with himself and with the General Strategy Computer.

The only battle of significance in the past week had been the defense
of an Earth outpost called Bennington IV. Theoretically, MacMaine was
supposed to check over the entire report, find out where the losing
side had erred, and feed correctional information into the Computer.
But he couldn't resist stopping after he had read the first section:
_Information Known to Earth Commander at Moment of Initial Contact_.

Then he would stop and consider how he, personally, would have handled
the situation if he had been the Earth commander. So many ships in
such-and-such places. Enemy fleet approaching at such-and-such
velocities. Battle array of enemy thus-and-so.

Now what?

MacMaine thought over the information on the defense of Bennington IV
and devised a battle plan. There was a weak point in the enemy's
attack, but it was rather obvious. MacMaine searched until he found
another weak point, much less obvious than the first. He knew it would
be there. It was.

Then he proceeded to ignore both weak points and concentrate on what he
would do if he were the enemy commander. The weak points were traps;
the computer could see them and avoid them. Which was just exactly what
was wrong with the computer's logic. In avoiding the traps, it also
avoided the best way to hit the enemy. A weak point _is_ weak, no
matter how well it may be booby-trapped. In baiting a rat trap, you
have to use real cheese because an imitation won't work.

_Of course_, MacMaine thought to himself, _you can always poison the
cheese, but let's not carry the analogy too far._

All right, then. How to hit the traps?

                     *      *      *      *      *

It took him half an hour to devise a completely wacky and unorthodox
way of hitting the holes in the enemy advance. He checked the time
carefully, because there's no point in devising a strategy if the
battle is too far gone to use it by the time you've figured it out.

Then he went ahead and read the rest of the report. Earth had lost the
outpost. And, worse, MacMaine's strategy would have won the battle if
it had been used. He fed it through his small office computer to make
sure. The odds were good.

And that was the thing that made MacMaine hate Strategy Analysis. Too
often, he won; too often, Earth lost. A computer was fine for working
out the logical outcome of a battle if it was given the proper
strategy, but it couldn't devise anything new.

Colonel MacMaine had tried to get himself transferred to space duty,
but without success. The Commanding Staff didn't want him out there.

The trouble was that they didn't believe MacMaine actually devised his
strategy before he read the complete report. How could anyone out-think
a computer?

He'd offered to prove it. "Give me a problem," he'd told his immediate
superior, General Matsukuo. "Give me the Initial Contact information of
a battle I haven't seen before, and I'll show you."

And Matsukuo had said, testily: "Colonel, I will not permit a member of
my staff to make a fool of himself in front of the Commanding Staff.
Setting yourself up as someone superior to the Strategy Board is the
most antisocial type of egocentrism imaginable. You were given the same
education at the Academy as every other officer; what makes you think
you are better than they? As time goes on, your automatic promotions
will put you in a position to vote on such matters--provided you don't
prejudice the Promotion Board against you by antisocial behavior. I
hold you in the highest regard, colonel, and I will say nothing to the
Promotion Board about this, but if you persist I will have to do my
duty. Now, I don't want to hear any more about it. Is that clear?"

It was.

All MacMaine had to do was wait, and he'd automatically be promoted to
the Commanding Staff, where he would have an equal vote with the others
of his rank. One unit vote to begin with and an additional unit for
every year thereafter.

_It's a great system for running a peacetime social club, maybe_,
MacMaine thought, _but it's no way to run a fighting force_.

Maybe the Kerothi general was right. Maybe _homo sapiens_ just wasn't
a race of fighters.

They had been once. Mankind had fought its way to domination of Earth
by battling every other form of life on the planet, from the smallest
virus to the biggest carnivore. The fight against disease was still
going on, as a matter of fact, and Man was still fighting the elemental
fury of Earth's climate.

But Man no longer fought with Man. Was that a bad thing? The discovery
of atomic energy, two centuries before, had literally made war
impossible, if the race was to survive. Small struggles bred bigger
struggles--or so the reasoning went. Therefore, the society had
unconsciously sought to eliminate the reasons for struggle.

What bred the hatreds and jealousies among men? What caused one group
to fight another?

Society had decided that intolerance and hatred were caused by
inequality. The jealousy of the inferior toward his superior; the scorn
of the superior toward his inferior. The Have-not envies the Have, and
the Have looks down upon the Have-not.

Then let us eliminate the Have-not. Let us make sure that everyone is a
Have.

Raise the standard of living. Make sure that every human being has the
necessities of life--food, clothing, shelter, proper medical care, and
proper education. More, give them the luxuries, too--let no man be
without anything that is poorer in quality or less in quantity than the
possessions of any other. There was no longer any middle class simply
because there were no other classes for it to be in the middle of.

"The poor you will have always with you," Jesus of Nazareth had said.
But, in a material sense, that was no longer true. The poor were
gone--and so were the rich.

But the poor in mind and the poor in spirit were still there--in
ever-increasing numbers.

Material wealth could be evenly distributed, but it could not remain
that way unless Society made sure that the man who was more clever than
the rest could not increase his wealth at the expense of his less
fortunate brethren.

Make it a social stigma to show more ability than the average. Be kind
to your fellow man; don't show him up as a stupid clod, no matter how
cloddish he may be.

_All men are created equal, and let's make sure they stay that way!_

                     *      *      *      *      *

There could be no such thing as a classless society, of course. That
was easily seen. No human being could do everything, learn everything,
be everything. There had to be doctors and lawyers and policemen and
bartenders and soldiers and machinists and laborers and actors and
writers and criminals and bums.

But let's make sure that the differentiation between classes is
horizontal, not vertical. As long as a person does his job the best he
can, he's as good as anybody else. A doctor is as good as a lawyer,
isn't he? Then a garbage collector is just as good as a nuclear
physicist, and an astronomer is no better than a street sweeper.

And what of the loafer, the bum, the man who's too lazy or weak-willed
to put out any more effort than is absolutely necessary to stay alive?
Well, my goodness, the poor chap can't _help_ it, can he? It isn't
_his_ fault, is it? He has to be helped. There is always _something_ he
is both capable of doing and willing to do. Does he like to sit around
all day and do nothing but watch television? Then give him a sheet of
paper with all the programs on it and two little boxes marked _Yes_ and
_No_, and he can put an X in one or the other to indicate whether he
likes the program or not. Useful? Certainly. All these sheets can be
tallied up in order to find out what sort of program the public likes
to see. After all, his vote is just as good as anyone else's, isn't it?

And a Program Analyst is just as good, just as important, and just as
well cared-for as anyone else.

And what about the criminal? Well, what _is_ a criminal? A person who
thinks he's superior to others. A thief steals because he thinks he has
more right to something than its real owner. A man kills because he has
an idea that he has a better right to live than someone else. In short,
a man breaks the law because he feels superior, because he thinks he
can outsmart Society and The Law. Or, simply, because he thinks he can
outsmart the policeman on the beat.

Obviously, that sort of antisocial behavior can't be allowed. The poor
fellow who thinks he's better than anyone else has to be segregated
from normal society and treated for his aberrations. But not punished!
Heavens no! His erratic behavior isn't _his_ fault, is it?

It was axiomatic that there had to be some sort of vertical structure
to society, naturally. A child can't do the work of an adult, and a
beginner can't be as good as an old hand. Aside from the fact that it
was actually impossible to force everyone into a common mold, it was
recognized that there had to be some incentive for staying with a job.
What to do?

The labor unions had solved that problem two hundred years before.
Promotion by seniority. Stick with a job long enough, and you'll
automatically rise to the top. That way, everyone had as good a chance
as everyone else.

Promotion tables for individual jobs were worked out on the basis of
longevity tables, so that by the time a man reached the automatic
retirement age he was automatically at the highest position he could
hold. No fuss, no bother, no trouble. Just keep your nose clean and
live as long as possible.

It eliminated struggle. It eliminated the petty jockeying for position
that undermined efficiency in an organization. Everybody deserves an
equal chance in life, so make sure everybody gets it.

Colonel Sebastian MacMaine had been born and reared in that society. He
could see many of its faults, but he didn't have the orientation to see
all of them. As he'd grown older, he'd seen that, regardless of the
position a man held according to seniority, a smart man could exercise
more power than those above him if he did it carefully.

A man is a slave if he is held rigidly in a pattern and not permitted
to step out of that pattern. In ancient times, a slave was born at the
bottom of the social ladder, and he remained there all his life. Only
rarely did a slave of exceptional merit manage to rise above his
assigned position.

But a man who is forced to remain on the bottom step of a stationary
stairway is no more a slave than a man who is forced to remain on a
given step of an escalator, and no less so.

Slavery, however, has two advantages--one for the individual, and one
which, in the long run, can be good for the race. For the individual,
it offers security, and that is the goal which by far the greater
majority of mankind seeks.

The second advantage is more difficult to see. It operates only in
favor of the exceptional individual. There are always individuals who
aspire to greater heights than the one they occupy at any given moment,
but in a slave society, they are slapped back into place if they act
hastily. Just as the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind can be
king if he taps the ground with a cane, so the gifted individual can
gain his ends in a slave society--provided he thinks out the
consequences of any act in advance.

The Law of Gravity is a universal edict which enslaves, in a sense,
every particle of matter in the cosmos. The man who attempts to defy
the "injustice" of that law by ignoring the consequences of its
enforcement will find himself punished rather severely. It may be
unjust that a bird can fly under its own muscle power, but a man who
tries to correct that injustice by leaping out of a skyscraper window
and flapping his arms vigorously will find that overt defiance of the
Law of Gravity brings very serious penalties indeed. The wise man seeks
the loopholes in the law, and loopholes are caused by other laws which
counteract--_not defy!_--the given law. A balloon full of hydrogen
"falls up" in obedience to the Law of Gravity. A contradiction? A
paradox? No. It is the Law of Gravity which causes the density and
pressure of a planet's atmosphere to decrease with altitude, and that
decrease in pressure forces the balloon upwards until the balance point
between atmospheric density and the internal density of the balloon is
reached.

The illustration may seem obvious and elementary to the modern man, but
it seems so only because he understands, at least to some extent, the
laws involved. It was not obvious to even the most learned man of, say,
the Thirteenth Century.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Slavery, too, has its laws, and it is as dangerous to defy the laws of
a society as it is to defy those of nature, and the only way to escape
the punishment resulting from those laws is to find the loopholes. One
of the most basic laws of any society is so basic that it is never,
_ever_ written down.

And that law, like all basic laws, is so simple in expression and so
obvious in application that any man above the moron level has an
intuitive grasp of it. It is the first law one learns as a child.

_Thou shall not suffer thyself to be caught._

The unthinking man believes that this basic law can be applied by
breaking the laws of his society in secret. What he fails to see is
that such lawbreaking requires such a fantastic network of lies,
subterfuges, evasions, and chicanery that the structure itself
eventually breaks down and his guilt is obvious to all. The very steps
he has taken to keep from getting caught eventually become signposts
that point unerringly at the lawbreaker himself.

Like the loopholes in the law of gravity, the loopholes in the laws of
society can not entail a _defiance_ of the law. Only compliance with
those laws will be ultimately successful.

The wise man works within the framework of the law--not only the
written, but the unwritten law--of his society. In a slave society, any
slave who openly rebels will find that he gets squashed pretty quickly.
But many a slave-owner has danced willingly to the tune of a slave who
was wiser and cleverer than he, without ever knowing that the tune
played was not his own.

And that is the second advantage of slavery. It teaches the exceptional
individual to think.

When a wise, intelligent individual openly and violently breaks the
laws of his society, there are two things which are almost certain:
One: he knows that there is no other way to do the thing he feels must
be done, and--

Two: he knows that he will pay the penalty for his crime in one way or
another.

Sebastian MacMaine knew the operations of those laws. As a member of a
self-enslaved society, he knew that to betray any sign of intelligence
was dangerous. A slight slip could bring the scorn of the slaves around
him; a major offense could mean death. The war with Keroth had thrown
him slightly off balance, but after his one experience with General
Matsukuo, he had quickly regained his equilibrium.

At the end of his work day, MacMaine closed his desk and left his
office precisely on time, as usual. Working overtime, except in the
gravest emergencies, was looked upon as antisocialism. The offender was
suspected of having Ambition--obviously a Bad Thing.

                     *      *      *      *      *

It was during his meal at the Officers' Mess that Colonel Sebastian
MacMaine heard the statement that triggered the decision in his mind.

There were three other officers seated with MacMaine around one of the
four-place tables in the big room. MacMaine only paid enough attention
to the table conversation to be able to make the appropriate noises at
the proper times. He had long since learned to do his thinking under
cover of general banalities.

Colonel VanDeusen was a man who would never have made Private First
Class in an army that operated on a strict merit system. His thinking
was muddy, and his conversation betrayed it. All he felt comfortable in
talking about was just exactly what he had been taught. Slogans,
banalities, and bromides. He knew his catechism, and he knew it was
safe.

"What I mean is, we got nothing to worry about. We all stick together,
and we can do anything. As long as we don't rock the boat, we'll come
through O.K."

"Sure," said Major Brock, looking up from his plate in blank-faced
surprise. "I mean, who says different?"

"Guy on my research team," said VanDeusen, plying his fork
industriously. "A wise-guy second looie. One of them."

"Oh," said the major knowingly. "One of them." He went back to his
meal.

"What'd he say?" MacMaine asked, just to keep his oar in.

"Ahhh, nothing serious, I guess," said VanDeusen, around a mouthful of
steak. "Said we were all clogged up with paper work, makin' reports on
tests, things like that. Said, why don't we figure out something to pop
those Carrot-skins outa the sky. So I said to him, 'Look, Lootenant,' I
said, 'you got your job to do, I got mine. If the paper work's pilin'
up,' I said, 'it's because somebody isn't pulling his share. And it
better not be you,' I said." He chuckled and speared another cube of
steak with his fork. "That settled him down. He's all right, though.
Young yet, you know. Soon's he gets the hang of how the Space Force
operates, he'll be O.K."

Since VanDeusen was the senior officer at the table, the others
listened respectfully as he talked, only inserting a word now and then
to show that they were listening.

MacMaine was thinking deeply about something else entirely, but
VanDeusen's influence intruded a little. MacMaine was wondering what it
was that bothered him about General Tallis, the Kerothi prisoner.

The alien was pleasant enough, in spite of his position. He seemed to
accept his imprisonment as one of the fortunes of war. He didn't
threaten or bluster, although he tended to maintain an air of
superiority that would have been unbearable in an Earthman.

Was that the reason for his uneasiness in the general's presence? No.
MacMaine could accept the reason for that attitude; the general's
background was different from that of an Earthman, and therefore he
could not be judged by Terrestrial standards. Besides, MacMaine could
acknowledge to himself that Tallis was superior to the norm--not only
the norm of Keroth, but that of Earth. MacMaine wasn't sure he could
have acknowledged superiority in another Earthman, in spite of the fact
that he knew that there must be men who were his superiors in one way
or another.

Because of his social background, he knew that he would probably form
an intense and instant dislike for any Earthman who talked the way
Tallis did, but he found that he actually _liked_ the alien officer.

It came as a slight shock when the realization hit MacMaine that his
liking for the general was exactly why he was uncomfortable around him.
Dammit, a man isn't supposed to like his enemy--and most especially
when that enemy does and says things that one would despise in a
friend.

Come to think of it, though, did he, MacMaine, actually have any
friends? He looked around him, suddenly clearly conscious of the other
men in the room. He searched through his memory, thinking of all his
acquaintances and relatives.

It was an even greater shock to realize that he would not be more than
faintly touched emotionally if any or all of them were to die at that
instant. Even his parents, both of whom were now dead, were only dim
figures in his memory. He had mourned them when an aircraft accident
had taken both of them when he was only eleven, but he found himself
wondering if it had been the loss of loved ones that had caused his
emotional upset or simply the abrupt vanishing of a kind of security he
had taken for granted.

And yet, he felt that the death of General Polan Tallis would leave an
empty place in his life.

Colonel VanDeusen was still holding forth.

"... So I told him. I said, 'Look, Lootenant,' I said, 'don't rock the
boat. You're a kid yet, you know,' I said. 'You got equal rights with
everybody else,' I said, 'but if you rock the boat, you aren't gonna
get along so well.'

"'You just behave yourself,' I said, 'and pull your share of the load
and do your job right and keep your nose clean, and you'll come out all
right.

"'Time I get to be on the General Staff,' I told him, 'why, you'll be
takin' over my job, maybe. That's the way it works,' I said.

"He's a good kid. I mean, he's a fresh young punk, that's all. He'll
learn, O.K. He'll climb right up, once he's got the right attitude.
Why, when I was----"

But MacMaine was no longer listening. It was astonishing to realize
that what VanDeusen had said was perfectly true. A blockhead like
VanDeusen would simply be lifted to a position of higher authority,
only to be replaced by another blockhead. There would be no essential
change in the _status quo_.

The Kerothi were winning steadily, and the people of Earth and her
colonies were making no changes whatever in their way of living. The
majority of people were too blind to be able to see what was happening,
and the rest were afraid to admit the danger, even to themselves. It
required no great understanding of strategy to see what the inevitable
outcome must be.

At some point in the last few centuries, human civilization had taken
the wrong path--a path that led only to oblivion.

It was at that moment that Colonel Sebastian MacMaine made his
decision.




_The Escape_


"Are you sure you understand, Tallis?" MacMaine asked in Kerothic.

The alien general nodded emphatically. "Perfectly. Your Kerothic is not
so bad that I could misunderstand your instructions. I still don't
understand why you are doing this. Oh I know the reasons you've given
me, but I don't completely believe them. However, I'll go along with
you. The worst that could happen would be for me to be killed, and I
would sooner face death in trying to escape than in waiting for your
executioners. If this is some sort of trap, some sort of weird way your
race's twisted idea of kindness has evolved to dispose of me, then I'll
accept your sentence. It's better than starving to death or facing a
firing squad."

"Not a firing squad," MacMaine said. "That wouldn't be kind. An
odorless, but quite deadly gas would be pumped into this cell while you
slept."

"That's worse. When death comes, I want to face it and fight it off as
long as possible, not have it sneaking up on me in my sleep. I think
I'd rather starve."

"You would," said MacMaine. "The food that was captured with you has
nearly run out, and we haven't been able to capture any more. But
rather than let you suffer, they would have killed you painlessly." He
glanced at the watch on his instrument cuff. "Almost time."

MacMaine looked the alien over once more. Tallis was dressed in the
uniform of Earth's Space Force, and the insignia of a full general
gleamed on his collar. His face and hands had been sprayed with an
opaque, pink-tan film, and his hairless head was covered with a black
wig. He wouldn't pass a close inspection, but MacMaine fervently hoped
that he wouldn't need to.

_Think it out, be sure you're right, then go ahead._ Sebastian MacMaine
had done just that. For three months, he had worked over the details of
his plan, making sure that they were as perfect as he was capable of
making them. Even so, there was a great deal of risk involved, and
there were too many details that required luck for MacMaine to be
perfectly happy about the plan.

But time was running out. As the general's food supply dwindled, his
execution date neared, and now it was only two days away. There was no
point in waiting until the last minute; it was now or never.

There were no spying TV cameras in the general's cell, no hidden
microphones to report and record what went on. No one had ever escaped
from the Space Force's prison, therefore, no one ever would.

MacMaine glanced again at his watch. It was time. He reached inside his
blouse and took out a fully loaded handgun.

For an instant, the alien officer's eyes widened, and he stiffened as
if he were ready to die in an attempt to disarm the Earthman. Then he
saw that MacMaine wasn't holding it by the butt; his hand was clasped
around the middle of the weapon.

"This is a chance I have to take," MacMaine said evenly. "With this
gun, you can shoot me down right here and try to escape alone. I've
told you every detail of our course of action, and, with luck, you
might make it alone." He held out his hand, with the weapon resting on
his open palm.

General Tallis eyed the Earthman for a long second. Then, without
haste, he took the gun and inspected it with a professional eye.

"Do you know how to operate it?" MacMaine asked, forcing calmness into
his voice.

"Yes. We've captured plenty of them." Tallis thumbed the stud that
allowed the magazine to slide out of the butt and into his hand. Then
he checked the mechanism and the power cartridges. Finally, he replaced
the magazine and put the weapon into the empty sleeve holster that
MacMaine had given him.

MacMaine let his breath out slowly. "All right," he said. "Let's go."

                     *      *      *      *      *

He opened the door of the cell, and both men stepped out into the
corridor. At the far end of the corridor, some thirty yards away, stood
the two armed guards who kept watch over the prisoner. At that
distance, it was impossible to tell that Tallis was not what he
appeared to be.

The guard had been changed while MacMaine was in the prisoner's cell,
and he was relying on the lax discipline of the soldiers to get him and
Tallis out of the cell block. With luck, the guards would have failed
to listen too closely to what they had been told by the men they
replaced; with even greater luck, the previous guardsmen would have
failed to be too explicit about who was in the prisoner's cell. With no
luck at all, MacMaine would be forced to shoot to kill.

MacMaine walked casually up to the two men, who came to an easy
attention.

"I want you two men to come with me. Something odd has happened, and
General Quinby and I want two witnesses as to what went on."

"What happened, sir?" one of them asked.

"Don't know for sure," MacMaine said in a puzzled voice. "The general
and I were talking to the prisoner, when all of a sudden he fell over.
I think he's dead. I couldn't find a heartbeat. I want you to take a
look at him so that you can testify that we didn't shoot him or
anything."

Obediently, the two guards headed for the cell, and MacMaine fell in
behind them. "You couldn't of shot him, sir," said the second guard
confidently. "We would of heard the shot."

"Besides," said the other, "it don't matter much. He was going to be
gassed day after tomorrow."

As the trio approached the cell, Tallis pulled the door open a little
wider and, in doing so, contrived to put himself behind it so that his
face couldn't be seen. The young guards weren't too awed by a full
general; after all, they'd be generals themselves someday. They were
much more interested in seeing the dead alien.

As the guards reached the cell door, MacMaine unholstered his pistol
from his sleeve and brought it down hard on the head of the nearest
youth. At the same time, Tallis stepped from behind the door and
clouted the other.

Quickly, MacMaine disarmed the fallen men and dragged them into the
open cell. He came out again and locked the door securely. Their guns
were tossed into an empty cell nearby.

"They won't be missed until the next change of watch, in four hours,"
MacMaine said. "By then, it won't matter, one way or another."

Getting out of the huge building that housed the administrative offices
of the Space Force was relatively easy. A lift chute brought the pair
to the main floor, and, this late in the evening, there weren't many
people on that floor. The officers and men who had night duty were
working on the upper floors. Several times, Tallis had to take a
handkerchief from his pocket and pretend to blow his nose in order to
conceal his alien features from someone who came too close, but no one
appeared to notice anything out of the ordinary.

As they walked out boldly through the main door, fifteen minutes later,
the guards merely came to attention and relaxed as a tall colonel and a
somewhat shorter general strode out. The general appeared to be having
a fit of sneezing, and the colonel was heard to say: "That's quite a
cold you've picked up, sir. Better get over to the dispensary and take
an anti-coryza shot."

"Mmmf," said the general. "_Ha-CHOO!_"

Getting to the spaceport was no problem at all. MacMaine had an
official car waiting, and the two sergeants in the front seat didn't
pay any attention to the general getting in the back seat because
Colonel MacMaine was talking to them. "We're ready to roll, sergeant,"
he said to the driver. "General Quinby wants to go straight to the
_Manila_, so let's get there as fast as possible. Take-off is scheduled
in ten minutes." Then he got into the back seat himself. The one-way
glass partition that separated the back seat from the front prevented
either of the two men from looking back at their passengers.

Seven minutes later, the staff car was rolling unquestioned through the
main gate of Waikiki Spaceport.

It was all so incredibly easy, MacMaine thought. Nobody questioned an
official car. Nobody checked anything too closely. Nobody wanted to
risk his lifelong security by doing or saying something that might be
considered antisocial by a busy general. Besides, it never entered
anyone's mind that there could be anything wrong. If there was a war
on, apparently no one had been told about it yet.

MacMaine thought, _Was I ever that stubbornly blind? Not quite, I
guess, or I'd never have seen what is happening_. But he knew he hadn't
been too much more perceptive than those around him. Even to an
intelligent man, the mask of stupidity can become a barrier to the
outside world as well as a concealment from it.

                     *      *      *      *      *

The Interstellar Ship _Manila_ was a small, fast, ten-man blaster-boat,
designed to get in to the thick of a battle quickly, strike hard, and
get away. Unlike the bigger, more powerful battle cruisers, she could
be landed directly on any planet with less than a two-gee pull at the
surface. The really big babies had to be parked in an orbit and loaded
by shuttle; they'd break up of their own weight if they tried to set
down on anything bigger than a good-sized planetoid. As long as their
antiacceleration fields were on, they could take unimaginable thrusts
along their axes, but the A-A fields were the cause of those thrusts as
well as the protection against them. The ships couldn't stand still
while they were operating, so they were no protection at all against a
planet's gravity. But a blaster-boat was small enough and compact
enough to take the strain.

It had taken careful preparation to get the _Manila_ ready to go just
exactly when MacMaine needed it. Papers had to be forged and put into
the chain of command communication at precisely the right times; others
had had to be taken out and replaced with harmless near-duplicates so
that the Commanding Staff wouldn't discover the deception. He had had
to build up the fictional identity of a "General Lucius Quinby" in such
a way that it would take a thorough check to discover that the officer
who had been put in command of the _Manila_ was nonexistent.

It was two minutes until take-off time when the staff car pulled up at
the foot of the ramp that led up to the main air lock of the ISS
_Manila_. A young-looking captain was standing nervously at the foot of
it, obviously afraid that his new commander might be late for the
take-off and wondering what sort of decision he would have to make if
the general wasn't there at take-off time. MacMaine could imagine his
feelings.

"General Quinby" developed another sneezing fit as he stepped out of
the car. This was the touchiest part of MacMaine's plan, the weakest
link in the whole chain of action. For a space of perhaps a minute, the
disguised Kerothi general would have to stand so close to the young
captain that the crudity of his makeup job would be detectable. He had
to keep that handkerchief over his face, and yet do it in such a way
that it would seem natural.

As Tallis climbed out of the car, chuffing windily into the kerchief,
MacMaine snapped an order to the sergeant behind the wheel. "That's
all. We're taking off almost immediately, so get that car out of here."

Then he walked rapidly over to the captain, who had snapped to
attention. There was a definite look of relief on his face, now that he
knew his commander was on time.

"All ready for take-off, captain? Everything checked out? Ammunition?
Energy packs all filled to capacity? All the crew aboard? Full rations
and stores stowed away?"

The captain kept his eyes on MacMaine's face as he answered "Yes, sir;
yes, sir; yes, sir," to the rapid fire of questions. He had no time to
shift his gaze to the face of his new C.O., who was snuffling his way
toward the foot of the landing ramp. MacMaine kept firing questions
until Tallis was halfway up the ramp.

Then he said: "Oh, by the way, captain--was the large package
containing General Quinby's personal gear brought aboard?"

"The big package? Yes, sir. About fifteen minutes ago."

"Good," said MacMaine. He looked up the ramp. "Are there any special
orders at this time, sir?" he asked.

"No," said Tallis, without turning. "Carry on, colonel." He went on up
to the air lock. It had taken Tallis hours of practice to say that
phrase properly, but the training had been worth it.

                     *      *      *      *      *

After Tallis was well inside the air lock, MacMaine whispered to the
young captain, "As you can see, the general has got a rather bad cold.
He'll want to remain in his cabin until he's over it. See that
anti-coryza shots are sent up from the dispensary as soon as we are out
of the Solar System. Now, let's go; we have less than a minute till
take-off."

MacMaine went up the ramp with the captain scrambling up behind him.

Tallis was just stepping into the commander's cabin as the two men
entered the air lock. MacMaine didn't see him again until the ship was
twelve minutes on her way--nearly five billion miles from Earth and
still accelerating.

He identified himself at the door and Tallis opened it cautiously.

"I brought your anti-coryza shot, sir," he said. In a small ship like
the _Manila_, the captain and the seven crew members could hear any
conversation in the companionways. He stepped inside and closed the
door. Then he practically collapsed on the nearest chair and had a good
case of the shakes.

"So-so f-f-far, s-so good," he said.

General Tallis grasped his shoulder with a firm hand. "Brace up,
Sepastian," he said gently in Kerothic. "You've done a beautiful job. I
still can't believe it, but I'll have to admit that if this is an act
it's a beautiful one." He gestured toward the small desk in one corner
of the room and the big package that was sitting on it. "The food is
all there. I'll have to eat sparingly, but I can make it. Now, what's
the rest of the plan?"

MacMaine took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. His shakes
subsided to a faint, almost imperceptible quiver. "The captain doesn't
know our destination. He was told that he would receive secret
instructions from you." His voice, he noticed thankfully, was almost
normal. He reached into his uniform jacket and took out an
official-looking sealed envelope. "These are the orders. We are going
out to arrange a special truce with the Kerothi."

"_What?_"

"That's what it says here. You'll have to get on the subradio and do
some plain and fancy talking. Fortunately, not a man jack aboard this
ship knows a word of your language, so they'll think you're arranging
truce terms.

"They'll be sitting ducks when your warship pulls up alongside and
sends in a boarding party. By the time they realize what has happened,
it will be too late."

"You're giving us the ship, too?" Tallis looked at him wonderingly.
"And eight prisoners?"

"Nine," said MacMaine. "I'll hand over my sidearm to you just before
your men come through the air lock."

General Tallis sat down in the other small chair, his eyes still on the
Earthman. "I can't help but feel that this is some sort of trick, but
if it is, I can't see through it. Why are you doing this, Sepastian?"

"You may not understand this, Tallis," MacMaine said evenly, "but I am
fighting for freedom. The freedom to think."




_The Traitor_


Convincing the Kerothi that he was in earnest was more difficult than
MacMaine had at first supposed. He had done his best, and now, after
nearly a year of captivity, Tallis had come to tell him that his offer
had been accepted.

General Tallis sat across from Colonel MacMaine, smoking his cigarette
absently.

"Just why are they accepting my proposition?" MacMaine asked bluntly.

"Because they can afford to," Tallis said with a smile. "You will be
watched, my sibling-by-choice. Watched every moment, for any sign of
treason. Your flagship will be a small ten-man blaster-boat--one of our
own. You gave us one; we'll give you one. At the worst, we will come
out even. At the best, your admittedly brilliant grasp of tactics and
strategy will enable us to save thousands of Kerothi lives, to say
nothing of the immense savings in time and money."

"All I ask is a chance to prove my ability and my loyalty."

"You've already proven your ability. All of the strategy problems that
you have been given over the past year were actual battles that had
already been fought. In eighty-seven per cent of the cases, your
strategy proved to be superior to our own. In most of the others, it
was just as good. In only three cases was the estimate of your losses
higher than the actual losses. Actually, we'd be fools to turn you
down. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose."

"I felt the same way a year ago," said MacMaine. "Even being watched
all the time will allow me more freedom than I had on Earth--if the
Board of Strategy is willing to meet my terms."

Tallis chuckled. "They are. You'll be the best-paid officer in the
entire fleet; none of the rest of us gets a tenth of what you'll be
getting, as far as personal value is concerned. And yet, it costs us
practically nothing. You drive an attractive bargain, Sepastian."

"Is that the kind of pay you'd like to get, Tallis?" MacMaine asked
with a smile.

"Why not? You'll get your terms: full pay as a Kerothi general, with
retirement on full pay after the war is over. The pick of the most
beautiful--by your standards--of the Earthwomen we capture. A home on
Keroth, built to your specifications, and full citizenship, including
the freedom to enter into any business relationships you wish. If you
keep your promises, we can keep ours and still come out ahead."

"Good. When do we start?"

"Now," said Tallis rising from his chair. "Put on your dress uniform,
and we'll go down to see the High Commander. We've got to give you a
set of general's insignia, my sibling-by-choice."

Tallis waited while MacMaine donned the blue trousers and gold-trimmed
red uniform of a Kerothi officer. When he was through, MacMaine looked
at himself in the mirror. "There's one more thing, Tallis," he said
thoughtfully.

"What's that?"

"This hair. I think you'd better arrange to have it permanently
removed, according to your custom. I can't do anything about the color
of my skin, but there's no point in my looking like one of your wild
hillmen."

"You're very gracious," Tallis said. "And very wise. Our officers will
certainly come closer to feeling that you are one of us."

"I am one of you from this moment," MacMaine said. "I never intend to
see Earth again, except, perhaps, from space--when we fight the final
battle of the war."

"That may be a hard battle," Tallis said.

"Maybe," MacMaine said thoughtfully. "On the other hand, if my overall
strategy comes out the way I think it will, that battle may never be
fought at all. I think that complete and total surrender will end the
war before we ever get that close to Earth."

"I hope you're right," Tallis said firmly. "This war is costing far
more than we had anticipated, in spite of the weakness of your--that
is, of Earth."

"Well," MacMaine said with a slight grin, "at least you've been able to
capture enough Earth food to keep me eating well all this time."

Tallis' grin was broad. "You're right. We're not doing too badly at
that. Now, let's go; the High Commander is waiting."

                     *      *      *      *      *

MacMaine didn't realize until he walked into the big room that what he
was facing was not just a discussion with a high officer, but what
amounted to a Court of Inquiry.

The High Commander, a dome-headed, wrinkled, yellow-skinned, hard-eyed
old Kerothi, was seated in the center of a long, high desk, flanked on
either side by two lower-ranking generals who had the same deadly, hard
look. Off to one side, almost like a jury in a jury box, sat twenty or
so lesser officers, none of them ranking below the Kerothi equivalent
of lieutenant-colonel.

As far as MacMaine could tell, none of the officers wore the insignia
of fleet officers, the spaceship-and-comet that showed that the wearer
was a fighting man. These were the men of the Permanent Headquarters
Staff--the military group that controlled, not only the armed forces of
Keroth, but the civil government as well.

"What's this?" MacMaine hissed in a whispered aside, in English.

"Pearr up, my prrotherr," Tallis answered softly, in the same tongue,
"all is well."

MacMaine had known, long before he had ever heard of General Polan
Tallis, that the Hegemony of Keroth was governed by a military junta,
and that all Kerothi were regarded as members of the armed forces.
Technically, there were no civilians; they were legally members of the
"unorganized reserve," and were under military law. He had known that
Kerothi society was, in its own way, as much a slave society as that of
Earth, but it had the advantage over Earth in that the system did allow
for advance by merit. If a man had the determination to get ahead, and
the ability to cut the throat--either literally or figuratively--of the
man above him in rank, he could take his place.

On a more strictly legal basis, it was possible for a common trooper to
become an officer by going through the schools set up for that purpose,
but, in practice, it took both pull and pressure to get into those
schools.

In theory, any citizen of the Hegemony could become an officer, and any
officer could become a member of the Permanent Headquarters Staff.
Actually, a much greater preference was given to the children of
officers. Examinations were given periodically for the purpose of
recruiting new members for the elite officers' corps, and any citizen
could take the examination--once.

But the tests were heavily weighted in favor of those who were already
well-versed in matters military, including what might be called the
"inside jokes" of the officers' corps. A common trooper had some chance
of passing the examination; a civilian had a very minute chance. A
noncommissioned officer had the best chance of passing the examination,
but there were age limits which usually kept NCO's from getting a
commission. By the time a man became a noncommissioned officer, he was
too old to be admitted to the officers training schools. There were
allowances made for "extraordinary merit," which allowed common
troopers or upper-grade NCO's to be commissioned in spite of the
general rules, and an astute man could take advantage of those
allowances.

Ability could get a man up the ladder, but it had to be a particular
kind of ability.

                     *      *      *      *      *

During his sojourn as a "guest" of the Kerothi, MacMaine had made a
point of exploring the history of the race. He knew perfectly well that
the histories he had read were doctored, twisted, and, in general,
totally unreliable in so far as presenting anything that would be
called a history by an unbiased investigator.

But, knowing this, MacMaine had been able to learn a great deal about
the present society. Even if the "history" was worthless as such, it
did tell something about the attitudes of a society that would make up
such a history. And, too, he felt that, in general, the main events
which had been catalogued actually occurred; the details had been
blurred, and the attitudes of the people had been misrepresented, but
the skeleton was essentially factual.

MacMaine felt that he knew what kind of philosophy had produced the
mental attitudes of the Court he now faced, and he felt he knew how to
handle himself before them.

Half a dozen paces in front of the great desk, the color of the floor
tiling was different from that of the rest of the floor. Instead of a
solid blue, it was a dead black. Tallis, who was slightly ahead of
MacMaine, came to a halt as his toes touched the edge of the black
area.

_Uh-oh! a balk line_, MacMaine thought. He stopped sharply at the same
point. Both of them just stood there for a full minute while they were
carefully inspected by the members of the Court.

Then the High Commander gestured with one hand, and the officer to his
left leaned forward and said: "Why is this one brought before us in the
uniform of an officer, bare of any insignia of rank?"

It could only be a ritual question, MacMaine decided; they must know
why he was there.

"I bring him as a candidate for admission to our Ingroup," Tallis
replied formally, "and ask the indulgence of Your Superiorities
therefor."

"And who are you who ask our indulgence?"

Tallis identified himself at length--name, rank, serial number,
military record, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

By the time he had finished, MacMaine was beginning to think that the
recitation would go on forever. The High Commander had closed his eyes,
and he looked as if he had gone to sleep.

There was more formality. Through it all, MacMaine stood at rigid
attention, flexing his calf muscles occasionally to keep the blood
flowing in his legs. He had no desire to disgrace himself by passing
out in front of the Court.

Finally the Kerothi officer stopped asking Tallis questions and looked
at the High Commander. MacMaine got the feeling that there was about to
be a departure from the usual procedure.

Without opening his eyes, the High Commander said, in a brittle, rather
harsh voice, "These circumstances are unprecedented." Then he opened
his eyes and looked directly at MacMaine. "Never has an animal been
proposed for such an honor. In times past, such a proposal would have
been mockery of this Court and this Ingroup, and a crime of such
monstrous proportions as to merit Excommunication."

MacMaine knew what that meant. The word was used literally; the
condemned one was cut off from all communication by having his sensory
nerves surgically severed. Madness followed quickly; psychosomatic
death followed eventually, as the brain, cut off from any outside
stimuli except those which could not be eliminated without death
following instantly, finally became incapable of keeping the body
alive. Without feedback, control was impossible, and the
organism-as-a-whole slowly deteriorated until death was inevitable.

At first, the victim screamed and thrashed his limbs as the brain sent
out message after message to the rest of the body, but since the brain
had no way of knowing whether the messages had been received or acted
upon, the victim soon went into a state comparable to that of catatonia
and finally died.

If it was not the ultimate in punishment, it was a damned close
approach, MacMaine thought. And he felt that the word "damned" could
be used in that sense without fear of exaggeration.

                     *      *      *      *      *

"However," the High Commander went on, gazing at the ceiling,
"circumstances change. It would once have been thought vile that a
machine should be allowed to do the work of a skilled man, and the
thought that a machine might do the work with more precision and
greater rapidity would have been almost blasphemous.

"This case must be viewed in the same light. As we are replacing
certain of our workers on our outer planets with Earth animals simply
because they are capable of doing the work more cheaply, so we must
recognize that the same interests of economy govern in this case.

"A computing animal, in that sense, is in the same class as a computing
machine. It would be folly to waste their abilities simply because they
are not human.

"There also arises the question of command. It has been represented to
this court, by certain officers who have been active in investigating
the candidate animal, that it would be as degrading to ask a human
officer to take orders from an animal as it would be to ask him to take
orders from a commoner of the Unorganized Reserve, if not more so. And,
I must admit, there is, on the surface of it, some basis for this
reasoning.

"But, again, we must not let ourselves be misled. Does not a spaceship
pilot, in a sense, take orders from the computer that gives him his
orbits and courses? In fact, do not all computers give orders, in one
way or another, to those who use them?

"Why, then, should we refuse to take orders from a computing animal?"

He paused and appeared to listen to the silence in the room before
going on.

"Stand at ease until the High Commander looks at you again," Tallis
said in a low aside.

This was definitely the pause for adjusting to surprise.

It seemed interminable, though it couldn't have been longer than a
minute later that the High Commander dropped his gaze from the ceiling
to MacMaine. When MacMaine snapped to attention again, the others in
the room became suddenly silent.

"We feel," the hard-faced old Kerothi continued, as if there had been
no break, "that, in this case, we are justified in employing the animal
in question.

"However, we must make certain exceptions to our normal procedure. The
candidate is not a machine, and therefore cannot be treated as a
machine. Neither is it human, and therefore cannot be treated as human.

"Therefore, this is the judgment of the Court of the Ingroup:

"The animal, having shown itself to be capable of behaving, in some
degree, as befits an officer--including, as we have been informed,
voluntarily conforming to our custom as regards superfluous hair--it
shall henceforth be considered as having the same status as an untaught
child or a barbarian, insofar as social conventions are concerned, and
shall be entitled to the use of the human pronoun, he.

"Further, he shall be entitled to wear the uniform he now wears, and
the insignia of a General of the Fleet. He shall be entitled, as far as
personal contact goes, to the privileges of that rank, and shall be
addressed as such.

"He will be accorded the right of punishment of an officer of that
rank, insofar as disciplining his inferiors is concerned, except that
he must first secure the concurrence of his Guardian Officer, as
hereinafter provided.

"He shall also be subject to punishment in the same way and for the
same offenses as humans of his rank, taking into account physiological
differences, except as hereinafter provided.

"His reward for proper service"--The High Commander listed the demands
MacMaine had made--"are deemed fitting, and shall be paid, provided his
duties in service are carried out as proposed.

"Obviously, however, certain restrictions must be made. General
MacMaine, as he is entitled to be called, is employed solely as a
Strategy Computer. His ability as such and his knowledge of the
psychology of the Earth animals are, as far as we are concerned at this
moment, his only useful attributes. Therefore, his command is
restricted to that function. He is empowered to act only through the
other officers of the Fleet as this Court may appoint; he is not to
command directly.

"Further, it is ordered that he shall have a Guardian Officer, who
shall accompany him at all times and shall be directly responsible for
his actions.

"That officer shall be punished for any deliberate crime committed by
the aforesaid General MacMaine as if he had himself committed the
crime.

"Until such time as this Court may appoint another officer for the
purpose, General Polan Tallis, previously identified in these
proceedings, is appointed as Guardian Officer."

The High Commander paused for a moment, then he said: "Proceed with the
investment of the insignia."




_The Strategy_


General Sebastian MacMaine, sometime Colonel of Earth's Space Force,
and presently a General of the Kerothi Fleet, looked at the array of
stars that appeared to drift by the main viewplate of his flagship, the
blaster-boat _Shudos_.

Behind him, General Tallis was saying, "You've done well, Sepastian.
Better than anyone could have really expected. Three battles so far,
and every one of them won by a margin far greater than anticipated. Any
ideas that anyone may have had that you were not wholly working for the
Kerothi cause has certainly been dispelled."

"Thanks, Tallis." MacMaine turned to look at the Kerothi officer. "I
only hope that I can keep it up. Now that we're ready for the big push,
I can't help but wonder what would happen if I were to lose a battle."

"Frankly," Tallis said, "that would depend on several things, the main
one being whether or not it appeared that you had deliberately thrown
the advantage to the enemy. But nobody expects you, or anyone else, to
win every time. Even the most brilliant commander can make an honest
mistake, and if it can be shown that it _was_ an honest mistake, and
one, furthermore, that he could not have been expected to avoid, he
wouldn't be punished for it. In your case, I'll admit that the
investigation would be a great deal more thorough than normal, and that
you wouldn't get as much of the benefit of the doubt as another officer
might, but unless there is a deliberate error I doubt that anything
serious would happen."

"Do you really believe that, Tallis, or is it just wishful thinking on
your part, knowing as you do that your punishment will be the same as
mine if I fail?" MacMaine asked flatly.

Tallis didn't hesitate. "If I didn't believe it, I would ask to be
relieved as your Guardian. And the moment I did that, you would be
removed from command. The moment I feel that you are not acting for the
best interests of Keroth, I will act--not only to protect myself, but
to protect my people."

"That's fair enough," MacMaine said. "But how about the others?"

"I cannot speak for my fellow officers--only for myself." Then Tallis'
voice became cold. "Just keep your hands clean, Sepastian, and all will
be well. You will not be punished for mistakes--only for crimes. If you
are planning no crimes, this worry of yours is needless."

"I ceased to worry about myself long ago," MacMaine said coolly. "I do
not fear personal death, not even by Excommunication. My sole worry is
about the ultimate outcome of the war if I should fail. That, and
nothing more."

"I believe you," Tallis said. "Let us say no more about it. Your
actions are difficult for us to understand, in some ways, that's all.
No Kerothi would ever change his allegiance as you have. Nor has any
Earth officer that we have captured shown any desire to do so. Oh, some
of them have agreed to do almost anything we wanted them to, but these
were not the intelligent ones, and even they were only doing it to save
their own miserable hides.

"Still, you are an exceptional man, Sepastian, unlike any other of your
race, as far as we know. Perhaps it is simply that you are the only one
with enough wisdom to seek your intellectual equals rather than remain
loyal to a mass of stupid animals who are fit only to be slaves."

"It was because I foresaw their eventual enslavement that I acted as I
did," MacMaine admitted. "As I saw it, I had only two choices--to
remain as I was and become a slave to the Kerothi or to put myself in
your hands willingly and hope for the best. As you----"

He was interrupted by a harsh voice from a nearby speaker.

"_Battle stations! Battle stations! Enemy fleet in detector range!
Contact in twelve minutes!_"

                     *      *      *      *      *

Tallis and MacMaine headed for the Command Room at a fast trot. The
three other Kerothi who made up the Strategy Staff came in at almost
the same time. There was a flurry of activity as the computers and
viewers were readied for action, then the Kerothi looked expectantly at
the Earthman.

MacMaine looked at the detector screens. The deployment of the
approaching Earth fleet was almost as he had expected it would be.
There were slight differences, but they would require only minor
changes in the strategy he had mapped out from the information brought
in by the Kerothi scout ships.

Undoubtedly, the Kerothi position had been relayed to the Earth
commander by their own advance scouts buzzing about in tiny, one-man
shells just small enough to be undetectable at normal range.

Watching the positions on the screens carefully, MacMaine called out a
series of numbers in an unhurried voice and watched as the orders,
relayed by the Kerothi staff, changed the position of parts of the
Kerothi fleet. Then, as the computer-led Earth fleet jockeyed to
compensate for the change in the Kerothi deployment, MacMaine called
out more orders.

The High Commander of Keroth had called MacMaine a "computing animal,"
but the term was far from accurate. MacMaine couldn't possibly have
computed all the variables in that battle, and he didn't try. It was a
matter of human intuition against mechanical logic. The advantage lay
with MacMaine, for, while the computer could not logically fathom the
intuitive processes of its human opponent, MacMaine could and did have
an intuitive grasp of the machine's logic. MacMaine didn't need to know
every variable in the pattern; he only needed to know the pattern as a
whole.

The _Shudos_ was well in the rear of the main body of the Kerothi
fleet. There was every necessity for keeping MacMaine's flagship out of
as much of the fighting as possible.

When the first contact was made, MacMaine was certain of the outcome.
His voice became a steady drone as he called out instructions to the
staff officers; his mind was so fully occupied with the moving pattern
before him that he noticed nothing else in the room around him.

Spaceship against spaceship, the two fleets locked in battle. The
warheads of ultralight torpedoes flared their eye-searing explosions
soundlessly into the void; ships exploded like overcharged beer bottles
as blaster energy caught them and smashed through their screens; men
and machines flamed and died, scattering the stripped nuclei of their
component atoms through the screaming silence of space.

And through it all, Sebastian MacMaine watched dispassionately, calling
out his orders as ten Earthmen died for every Kerothi death.

This was a crucial battle. The big push toward the center of Earth's
cluster of worlds had begun. Until now, the Kerothi had been fighting
the outposts, the planets on the fringes of Earth's sphere of influence
which were only lightly colonized, and therefore relatively easy to
take. Earth's strongest fleets were out there, to protect planets that
could not protect themselves.

Inside that periphery were the more densely populated planets, the
self-sufficient colonies which were more or less able to defend
themselves without too much reliance on space fleets as such. But now
that the backbone of the Earth's Space Force had been all but broken,
it would be a relatively easy matter to mop up planet after planet,
since each one could be surrounded separately, pounded into surrender,
and secured before going on to the next. That, at least, had been the
original Kerothi intention. But MacMaine had told them that there was
another way--a way which, if it succeeded, would save time, lives, and
money for the Kerothi. And, if it failed, MacMaine said, they would be
no worse off, they would simply have to resume the original plan.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Now, the first of the big colony planets was to be taken. When the
protecting Earth fleet was reduced to tatters, the Kerothi would go on
to Houston's World as the first step in the big push toward Earth
itself.

But MacMaine wasn't thinking of that phase of the war. That was still
in the future, while the hellish space battle was still at hand.

He lost track of time as he watched the Kerothi fleet take advantage of
their superior tactical position and tear the Earth fleet to bits. Not
until he saw the remains of the Earth fleet turn tail and run did he
realize that the battle had been won.

The Kerothi fleet consolidated itself. There was no point in pursuing
the fleeting Earth ships; that would only break up the solidity of the
Kerothi deployment. The losers could afford to scatter; the winners
could not. Early in the war, the Kerothi had used that trick against
Earth; the Kerothi had broken and fled, and the Earth fleet had split
up to chase them down. The scattered Earth ships had suddenly found
that they had been led into traps composed of hidden clusters of
Kerothi ships. Naturally, the trick had never worked again for either
side.

"All right," MacMaine said when it was all over, "let's get on to
Houston's World."

The staff men, including Tallis, were already on their feet,
congratulating MacMaine and shaking his hands. Even General Hokotan,
the Headquarters Staff man, who had been transferred temporarily to the
Fleet Force to keep an eye on both MacMaine and Tallis, was
enthusiastically pounding MacMaine's shoulder.

No one aboard was supposed to know that Hokotan was a Headquarters
officer, but MacMaine had spotted the spy rather easily. There was a
difference between the fighters of the Fleet and the politicoes of
Headquarters. The politicoes were no harder, perhaps, nor more
ruthless, than the fighters, but they were of a different breed. Theirs
was the ruthlessness of the bully who steps on those who are weaker
rather than the ruthlessness of the man who kills only to win a battle.
MacMaine had the feeling that the Headquarters Staff preferred to spend
their time browbeating their underlings rather than risk their necks
with someone who could fight back, however weakly.

General Hokotan seemed to have more of the fighting quality than most
HQ men, but he wasn't a Fleet Officer at heart. He couldn't be compared
to Tallis without looking small and mean.

As a matter of cold fact, very few of the officers were in anyway
comparable to Tallis--not even the Fleet men. The more MacMaine learned
of the Kerothi, the more he realized just how lucky he had been that it
had been Tallis, and not some other Kerothi general, who had been
captured by the Earth forces. He was not at all sure that his plan
would have worked at all with any of the other officers he had met.

Tallis, like MacMaine, was an unusual specimen of his race.

                     *      *      *      *      *

MacMaine took the congratulations of the Kerothi officers with a look
of pleasure on his face, and when they had subsided somewhat, he
grinned and said:

"Let's get a little work done around here, shall we? We have a planet
to reduce yet."

They laughed. Reducing a planet didn't require strategy--only
fire-power. The planet-based defenses couldn't maneuver, but the energy
reserve of a planet is greater than that of any fleet, no matter how
large. Each defense point would have to be cut down individually by the
massed power of the fleet, cut down one by one until the planet was
helpless. The planet as a whole might have more energy reserve than the
fleet, but no individual defense point did. The problem was to avoid
being hit by the rest of the defense points while one single point was
bearing the brunt of the fleet's attack. It wasn't without danger, but
it could be done.

And for a job like that, MacMaine's special abilities weren't needed.
He could only watch and wait until it was over.

So he watched and waited. Unlike the short-time fury of a space battle,
the reduction of a planet took days of steady pounding. When it was
over, the blaster-boats of the Kerothi fleet and the shuttles from the
great battle cruisers landed on Houston's World and took possession of
the planet.

                     *      *      *      *      *

MacMaine was waiting in his cabin when General Hokotan brought the news
that the planet was secured.

"They are ours," the HQ spy said with a superior smile. "The sniveling
animals didn't even seem to want to defend themselves. They don't even
know how to fight a hand-to-hand battle. How could such things have
ever evolved intelligence enough to conquer space?" Hokotan enjoyed
making such remarks to MacMaine's face, knowing that since MacMaine was
technically a Kerothi he couldn't show any emotion when the enemy was
insulted.

MacMaine showed none. "Got them all, eh?" he said.

"All but a few who scattered into the hills and forests. But not many
of them had the guts to leave the security of their cities, even though
we were occupying them."

"How many are left alive?"

"An estimated hundred and fifty million, more or less."

"Good. That should be enough to set an example. I picked Houston's
World because we can withdraw from it without weakening our position;
its position in space is such that it would constitute no menace to us
even if we never reduced it. That way, we can be sure that our little
message is received on Earth."

Hokotan's grin was wolfish. "And the whole weak-hearted race will shake
with fear, eh?"

"Exactly. Tallis can speak English well enough to be understood. Have
him make the announcement to them. He can word it however he likes, but
the essence is to be this: Houston's World resisted the occupation by
Kerothi troops; an example must be made of them to show them what
happens to Earthmen who resist."

"That's all?"

"That's enough. Oh, by the way, make sure that there are plenty of
their cargo spaceships in good working order; I doubt that we've ruined
them all, but if we have, repair some of them.

"And, too, you'd better make sure that you allow some of the merchant
spacemen to 'escape,' just in case there are no space pilots among
those who took to the hills. We want to make sure that someone can use
those ships to take the news back to Earth."

"And the rest?" Hokotan asked, with an expectant look. He knew what was
to be done, but he wanted to hear MacMaine say it again.

MacMaine obliged.

"Hang them. Every man, every woman, every child. I want them to be
decorating every lamppost and roof-beam on the planet, dangling like
overripe fruit when the Earth forces return."




_The Results_


"I don't understand it," said General Polan Tallis worriedly. "Where
are they coming from? How are they doing it? What's happened?"

MacMaine and the four Kerothi officers were sitting in the small dining
room that doubled as a recreation room between meals. The nervous
strain of the past few months was beginning to tell on all of them.

"Six months ago," Tallis continued jerkily, "we had them beaten. One
planet after another was reduced in turn. Then, out of nowhere, comes a
fleet of ships we didn't even know existed, and they've smashed us at
every turn."

"If they _are_ ships," said Loopat, the youngest officer of the
_Shudos_ staff. "Who ever heard of a battleship that was undetectable
at a distance of less than half a million miles? It's impossible!"

"Then we're being torn to pieces by the impossible!" Hokotan snapped.
"Before we even know they are anywhere around, they are blasting us
with everything they've got! Not even the strategic genius of General
MacMaine can help us if we have no time to plot strategy!"

The Kerothi had been avoiding MacMaine's eyes, but now, at the mention
of his name, they all looked at him as if their collective gaze had
been drawn to him by some unknown attractive force.

"It's like fighting ghosts," MacMaine said in a hushed voice. For the
first time, he felt a feeling of awe that was almost akin to fear. What
had he done?

In another sense, that same question was in the mind of the Kerothi.

"Have you any notion at all what they are doing or how they are doing
it?" asked Tallis gently.

"None," MacMaine answered truthfully. "None at all, I swear to you."

"They don't even behave like Earthmen," said the fourth Kerothi, a
thick-necked officer named Ossif. "They not only outfight us, they
outthink us at every turn. Is it possible, General MacMaine, that the
Earthmen have allies of another race, a race of intelligent beings that
we don't know of?" He left unsaid the added implication: "_And that
you have neglected to tell us about?_"

"Again," said MacMaine, "I swear to you that I know nothing of any
third intelligent race in the galaxy."

"If there were such allies," Tallis said, "isn't it odd that they
should wait so long to aid their friends?"

"No odder than that the Earthmen should suddenly develop superweapons
that we cannot understand, much less fight against," Hokotan said, with
a touch of anger.

"Not 'superweapons'," MacMaine corrected almost absently. "All they
have is a method of making their biggest ships indetectable until
they're so close that it doesn't matter. When they do register on our
detectors, it's too late. But the weapons they strike with are the same
type as they've always used, I believe."

"All right, then," Hokotan said, his voice showing more anger. "One
weapon or whatever you want to call it. Practical invisibility. But
that's enough. An invisible man with a knife is more deadly than a
dozen ordinary men with modern armament. Are you sure you know nothing
of this, General MacMaine?"

Before MacMaine could answer, Tallis said, "Don't be ridiculous,
Hokotan! If he had known that such a weapon existed, would he have been
fool enough to leave his people? With that secret, they stand a good
chance of beating us in less than half the time it took us to wipe out
their fleet--or, rather, to wipe out as much of it as we did."

"They got a new fleet somewhere," said young Loopat, almost to himself.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Tallis ignored him. "If MacMaine deserted his former allegiance,
knowing that they had a method of rendering the action of a space drive
indetectable, then he was and is a blithering idiot. And we know he
isn't."

"All right, all right! I concede that," snapped Hokotan. "He knows
nothing. I don't say that I fully trust him, even now, but I'll admit
that I cannot see how he is to blame for the reversals of the past few
months.

"If the Earthmen had somehow been informed of our activities, or if we
had invented a superweapon and they found out about it, I would be
inclined to put the blame squarely on MacMaine. But----"

"How would he get such information out?" Tallis cut in sharply. "He has
been watched every minute of every day. We know he couldn't send any
information to Earth. How could he?"

"Telepathy, for all I know!" Hokotan retorted. "But that's beside the
point! I don't trust him any farther than I can see him, and not
completely, even then. But I concede that there is no possible
connection between this new menace and anything MacMaine might have
done.

"This is no time to worry about that sort of thing; we've got to find
some way of getting our hands on one of those ghost ships!"

"I do suggest," put in the thick-necked Ossif, "that we keep a closer
watch on General MacMaine. Now that the Earth animals are making a
comeback, he might decide to turn his coat now, even if he has been
innocent of any acts against Keroth so far."

Hokotan's laugh was a short, hard bark. "Oh, we'll watch him, all
right, Ossif. But, as Tallis has pointed out, MacMaine is not a fool,
and he would certainly be a fool to return to Earth if his leaving it
was a genuine act of desertion. The last planet we captured, before
this invisibility thing came up to stop us, was plastered all over with
notices that the Earth fleet was concentrating on the capture of the
arch-traitor MacMaine.

"The price on his head, as a corpse, is enough to allow an Earthman to
retire in luxury for life. The man who brings him back alive gets ten
times that amount.

"Of course, it's possible that the whole thing is a put-up job--a smoke
screen for our benefit. That's why we must and will keep a closer
watch. But only a few of the Earth's higher-up would know that it was a
smoke screen; the rest believe it, whether it is true or not. MacMaine
would have to be very careful not to let the wrong people get their
hands on him if he returned."

"It's no smoke screen," MacMaine said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I
assure you that I have no intention of returning to Earth. If Keroth
loses this war, then I will die--either fighting for the Kerothi or by
execution at the hands of Earthmen if I am captured. Or," he added
musingly, "perhaps even at the hands of the Kerothi, if someone decides
that a scapegoat is needed to atone for the loss of the war."

"If you are guilty of treason," Hokotan barked, "you will die as a
traitor! If you are not, there is no need for your death. The Kerothi
do not need scapegoats!"

"Talk, talk, talk!" Tallis said with a sudden bellow. "We have agreed
that MacMaine has done nothing that could even remotely be regarded as
suspicious! He has fought hard and loyally; he has been more ruthless
than any of us in destroying the enemy. Very well, we will guard him
more closely. We can put him in irons if that's necessary.

"But let's quit yapping and start thinking! We've been acting like
frightened children, not knowing what it is we fear, and venting our
fear-caused anger on the most handy target!

"Let's act like men--not like children!"

After a moment, Hokotan said: "I agree." His voice was firm, but calm.
"Our job will be to get our hands on one of those new Earth ships.
Anyone have any suggestions?"

They had all kinds of suggestions, one after another. The detectors,
however, worked because they detected the distortion of space which was
as necessary for the drive of a ship as the distortion of air was
necessary for the movement of a propeller-driven aircraft. None of them
could see how a ship could avoid making that distortion, and none of
them could figure out how to go about capturing a ship that no one
could even detect until it was too late to set a trap.

The discussion went on for days. And it was continued the next day and
the next. And the days dragged out into weeks.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Communications with Keroth broke down. The Fleet-to-Headquarters
courier ships, small in size, without armament, and practically solidly
packed with drive mechanism, could presumably outrun anything but
another unarmed courier. An armed ship of the same size would have to
use some of the space for her weapons, which meant that the drive would
have to be smaller; if the drive remained the same size, then the
armament would make the ship larger. In either case, the speed would be
cut down. A smaller ship might outrun a standard courier, but if they
got much smaller, there wouldn't be room inside for the pilot.

Nonetheless, courier after courier never arrived at its destination.

And the Kerothi Fleet was being decimated by the hit-and-run tactics of
the Earth's ghost ships. And Earth never lost a ship; by the time the
Kerothi ships knew their enemy was in the vicinity, the enemy had hit
and vanished again. The Kerothi never had a chance to ready their
weapons.

In the long run, they never had a chance at all.

MacMaine waited with almost fatalistic complacence for the inevitable
to happen. When it did happen, he was ready for it.

The _Shudos_, tiny flagship of what had once been a mighty armada and
was now only a tattered remnant, was floating in orbit, along with the
other remaining ships of the fleet, around a bloated red-giant sun.
With their drives off, there was no way of detecting them at any
distance, and the chance of their being found by accident was
microscopically small. But they could not wait forever. Water could be
recirculated, and energy could be tapped from the nearby sun, but food
was gone once it was eaten.

Hokotan's decision was inevitable, and, under the circumstances, the
only possible one. He simple told them what they had already
known--that he was a Headquarters Staff officer.

"We haven't heard from Headquarters in weeks," he said at last. "The
Earth fleet may already be well inside our periphery. We'll have to go
home." He produced a document which he had obviously been holding in
reserve for another purpose and handed it to Tallis. "Headquarters
Staff Orders, Tallis. It empowers me to take command of the Fleet in
the event of an emergency, and the decision as to what constitutes an
emergency was left up to my discretion. I must admit that this is not
the emergency any of us at Headquarters anticipated."

Tallis read through the document. "I see that it isn't," he said dryly.
"According to this, MacMaine and I are to be placed under immediate
arrest as soon as you find it necessary to act."

"Yes," said Hokotan bitterly. "So you can both consider yourselves
under arrest. Don't bother to lock yourselves up--there's no point in
it. General MacMaine, I see no reason to inform the rest of the Fleet
of this, so we will go on as usual. The orders I have to give are
simple: The Fleet will head for home by the most direct possible
geodesic. Since we cannot fight, we will simply ignore attacks and keep
going as long as we last. We can do nothing else." He paused
thoughtfully.

"And, General MacMaine, in case we do not live through this, I would
like to extend my apologies. I do not like you; I don't think I could
ever learn to like an anim ... to like a non-Kerothi. But I know when
to admit an error in judgment. You have fought bravely and
well--better, I know, than I could have done myself. You have shown
yourself to be loyal to your adopted planet; you are a Kerothi in every
sense of the word except the physical. My apologies for having wronged
you."

He extended his hands and MacMaine took them. A choking sensation
constricted the Earthman's throat for a moment, then he got the words
out--the words he had to say. "Believe me, General Hokotan, there is no
need for an apology. No need whatever."

"Thank you," said Hokotan. Then he turned and left the room.

"All right, Tallis," MacMaine said hurriedly, "let's get moving."

                     *      *      *      *      *

The orders were given to the remnants of the Fleet, and they cut in
their drives to head homeward. And the instant they did, there was
chaos. Earth's fleet of "ghost ships" had been patrolling the area for
weeks, knowing that the Kerothi fleet had last been detected somewhere
in the vicinity. As soon as the spatial distortions of the Kerothi
drives flashed on the Earth ships' detectors, the Earth fleet, widely
scattered over the whole circumambient volume of space, coalesced
toward the center of the spatial disturbance like a cloud of bees all
heading for the same flower.

Where there had been only the dull red light of the giant star, there
suddenly appeared the blinding, blue-white brilliance of disintegrating
matter, blossoming like cruel, deadly, beautiful flowers in the midst
of the Kerothi ships, then fading slowly as each expanding cloud of
plasma cooled.

Sebastian MacMaine might have died with the others except that the
_Shudos_, as the flagship, was to trail behind the fleet, so her drive
had not yet been activated. The _Shudos_ was still in orbit, moving at
only a few miles per second when the Earth fleet struck.

Her drive never did go on. A bomb, only a short distance away as the
distance from atomic disintegration is measured, sent the _Shudos_
spinning away, end over end, like a discarded cigar butt flipped toward
a gutter, one side caved in near the rear, as if it had been kicked in
by a giant foot.

There was still air in the ship, MacMaine realized groggily as he awoke
from the unconsciousness that had been thrust upon him. He tried to
stand up, but he found himself staggering toward one crazily-slanted
wall. The stagger was partly due to his grogginess, and partly due to
the Coriolis forces acting within the spinning ship. The artificial
gravity was gone, which meant that the interstellar drive engines had
been smashed. He wondered if the emergency rocket drive was still
working--not that it would take him anywhere worth going to in less
than a few centuries. But, then, Sebastian MacMaine had nowhere to go,
anyhow.

Tallis lay against one wall, looking very limp. MacMaine half staggered
over to him and knelt down. Tallis was still alive.

The centrifugal force caused by the spinning ship gave an effective
pull of less than one Earth gravity, but the weird twists caused by the
Coriolis forces made motion and orientation difficult. Besides, the
ship was spinning slightly on her long axis as well as turning
end-for-end.

MacMaine stood there for a moment, trying to think. He had expected to
die. Death was something he had known was inevitable from the moment he
made his decision to leave Earth. He had not known how or when it would
come, but he had known that it would come soon. He had known that he
would never live to collect the reward he had demanded of the Kerothi
for "faithful service." Traitor he might be, but he was still honest
enough with himself to know that he would never take payment for
services he had not rendered.

Now death was very near, and Sebastian MacMaine almost welcomed it. He
had no desire to fight it. Tallis might want to stand and fight death
to the end, but Tallis was not carrying the monstrous weight of guilt
that would stay with Sebastian MacMaine until his death, no matter how
much he tried to justify his actions.

On the other hand, if he had to go, he might as well do a good job of
it. Since he still had a short time left, he might as well wrap the
whole thing up in a neat package. How?

Again, his intuitive ability to see pattern gave him the answer long
before he could have reasoned it out.

_They will know_, he thought, _but they will never be sure they know. I
will be immortal. And my name will live forever, although no Earthman
will ever again use the surname MacMaine or the given name Sebastian_.

He shook his head to clear it. No use thinking like that now. There
were things to be done.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Tallis first. MacMaine made his way over to one of the emergency
medical kits that he knew were kept in every compartment of every ship.
One of the doors of a wall locker hung open, and the blue-green medical
symbol used by the Kerothi showed darkly in the dim light that came
from the three unshattered glow plates in the ceiling. He opened the
kit, hoping that it contained something equivalent to adhesive tape. He
had never inspected a Kerothi medical kit before. Fortunately, he could
read Kerothi. If a military government was good for nothing else, at
least it was capable of enforcing a simplified phonetic orthography so
that words were pronounced as they were spelled. And--

He forced his wandering mind back to his work. The blow on the head,
plus the crazy effect the spinning was having on his inner ears, plus
the cockeyed gravitational orientation that made his eyes feel as
though they were seeing things at two different angles, all combined to
make for more than a little mental confusion.

There was adhesive tape, all right. Wound on its little spool, it
looked almost homey. He spent several minutes winding the sticky
plastic ribbon around Tallis' wrists and ankles.

Then he took the gun from the Kerothi general's sleeve holster--he had
never been allowed one of his own--and, holding it firmly in his right
hand, he went on a tour of the ship.

It was hard to move around. The centrifugal force varied from point to
point throughout the ship, and the corridors were cluttered with debris
that seemed to move with a life of its own as each piece shifted slowly
under the effects of the various forces working on it. And, as the
various masses moved about, the rate of spin of the ship changed as the
law of conservation of angular momentum operated. The ship was full of
sliding, clattering, jangling noises as the stuff tried to find a final
resting place and bring the ship to equilibrium.

He found the door to Ossif's cabin open and the room empty. He found
Ossif in Loopat's cabin, trying to get the younger officer to his feet.

Ossif saw MacMaine at the door and said: "You're alive! Good! Help
me----" Then he saw the gun in MacMaine's hand and stopped. It was the
last thing he saw before MacMaine shot him neatly between the eyes.

Loopat, only half conscious, never even knew he was in danger, and the
blast that drilled through his brain prevented him from ever knowing
anything again in this life.

Like a man in a dream, MacMaine went on to Hokotan's cabin, his weapon
at the ready. He was rather pleased to find that the HQ general was
already quite dead, his neck broken as cleanly as if it had been done
by a hangman. Hardly an hour before, MacMaine would cheerfully have
shot Hokotan where it would hurt the most and watch him die slowly. But
the memory of Hokotan's honest apology made the Earthman very glad that
he did not have to shoot the general at all.

There remained only the five-man crew, the NCO technician and his gang,
who actually ran the ship. They would be at the tail of the ship, in
the engine compartment. To get there, he had to cross the center of
spin of the ship, and the change of gravity from one direction to
another, decreasing toward zero, passing the null point, and rising
again on the other side, made him nauseous. He felt better after his
stomach had emptied itself.

Cautiously, he opened the door to the drive compartment and then
slammed it hard in sudden fear when he saw what had happened. The
shielding had been torn away from one of the energy converters and
exposed the room to high-energy radiation. The crewmen were quite dead.

The fear went away as quickly as it had come. So maybe he'd dosed
himself with a few hundred Roentgens--so what? A little radiation never
hurt a dead man.

But he knew now that there was no possibility of escape. The drive was
wrecked, and the only other means of escape, the one-man courier boat
that every blaster-boat carried, had been sent out weeks ago and had
never returned.

If only the courier boat were still in its cradle--

MacMaine shook his head. No. It was better this way. Much better.

He turned and went back to the dining cabin where Tallis was trussed
up. This time, passing the null-gee point didn't bother him much at
all.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Tallis was moaning a little and his eyelids were fluttering by the time
MacMaine got back. The Earthman opened the medical kit again and looked
for some kind of stimulant. He had no knowledge of medical or chemical
terms in Kerothic, but there was a box of glass ampoules bearing
instructions to "crush and allow patient to inhale fumes." That sounded
right.

The stuff smelled like a mixture of spirits of ammonia and butyl
mercaptan, but it did the job. Tallis coughed convulsively, turned his
head away, coughed again, and opened his eyes. MacMaine tossed the
stinking ampoule out into the corridor as Tallis tried to focus his
eyes.

"How do you feel?" MacMaine asked. His voice sounded oddly thick in his
own ears.

"All right. I'm all right. What happened?" He looked wonderingly
around. "Near miss? Must be. Anyone hurt?"

"They're all dead but you and me," MacMaine said.

"Dead? Then we'd better----" He tried to move and then realized that he
was bound hand and foot. The sudden realization of his position seemed
to clear his brain completely. "Sepastian, what's going on here? Why am
I tied up?"

"I had to tie you," MacMaine explained carefully, as though to a child.
"There are some things I have to do yet, and I wouldn't want you to
stop me. Maybe I should have just shot you while you were unconscious.
That would have been kinder to both of us, I think. But ... but,
Tallis, I had to tell somebody. Someone else has to know. Someone else
has to judge. Or maybe I just want to unload it on someone else,
someone who will carry the burden with me for just a little while. I
don't know."

"Sepastian, what are you talking about?" The Kerothi's face shone dully
orange in the dim light, his bright green eyes looked steadily at the
Earthman, and his voice was oddly gentle.

"I'm talking about treason," said MacMaine. "Do you want to listen?"

"I don't have much choice, do I?" Tallis said. "Tell me one thing
first: Are we going to die?"

"You are, Tallis. But I won't. I'm going to be immortal."

Tallis looked at him for a long moment. Then, "All right, Sepastian.
I'm no psych man, but I know you're not well. I'll listen to whatever
you have to say. But first, untie my hands and feet."

"I can't do that, Tallis. Sorry. But if our positions were reversed, I
know what I would do to you when I heard the story. And I can't let you
kill me, because there's something more that has to be done."

Tallis knew at that moment that he was looking at the face of Death.
And he also knew that there was nothing whatever he could do about it.
Except talk. And listen.

"Very well, Sepastian," he said levelly. "Go ahead. Treason, you say?
How? Against whom?"

"I'm not quite sure," said Sebastian MacMaine. "I thought maybe you
could tell me."




_The Reason_


"Let me ask you one thing, Tallis," MacMaine said. "Would you do
anything in your power to save Keroth from destruction? Anything, no
matter how drastic, if you knew that it would save Keroth in the long
run?"

"A foolish question. Of course I would. I would give my life."

"Your life? A mere nothing. A pittance. Any man could give his life.
Would you consent to live forever for Keroth?"

Tallis shook his head as though he were puzzled. "Live forever? That's
twice or three times you've said something about that. I _don't_
understand you."

"Would you consent to live forever as a filthy curse on the lips of
every Kerothi old enough to speak? Would you consent to be a vile,
inhuman monster whose undead spirit would hang over your homeland like
an evil miasma for centuries to come, whose very name would touch a
flame of hatred in the minds of all who heard it?"

"That's a very melodramatic way of putting it," the Kerothi said, "but
I believe I understand what you mean. Yes, I would consent to that if
it would be the only salvation of Keroth."

"Would you slaughter helpless millions of your own people so that other
billions might survive? Would you ruthlessly smash your system of
government and your whole way of life if it were the only way to save
the people themselves?"

"I'm beginning to see what you're driving at," Tallis said slowly. "And
if it is what I think it is, I think I would like to kill you--very
slowly."

"I know, I know. But you haven't answered my question. Would you do
those things to save your people?"

"I would," said Tallis coldly. "Don't misunderstand me. I do not loathe
you for what you have done to your own people; I hate you for what you
have done to mine."

"That's as it should be," said MacMaine. His head was clearing up more
now. He realized that he had been talking a little wildly at first. Or
was he really insane? Had he been insane from the beginning? No. He
knew with absolute clarity that every step he had made had been cold,
calculating, and ruthless, but utterly and absolutely sane.

He suddenly wished that he had shot Tallis without wakening him. If his
mind hadn't been in such a state of shock, he would have. There was no
need to torture the man like this.

"Go on," said Tallis, in a voice that had suddenly become devoid of all
emotion. "Tell it all."

"Earth was stagnating," MacMaine said, surprised at the sound of his
own voice. He hadn't intended to go on. But he couldn't stop now. "You
saw how it was. Every standard had become meaningless because no
standard was held to be better than any other standard. There was no
beauty because beauty was superior to ugliness and we couldn't allow
superiority or inferiority. There was no love because in order to love
someone or something you must feel that it is in some way superior to
that which is not loved. I'm not even sure I know what those terms
mean, because I'm not sure I ever thought anything was beautiful, I'm
not sure I ever loved anything. I only read about such things in books.
But I know I felt the emptiness inside me where those things should
have been.

"There was no morality, either. People did not refrain from stealing
because it was wrong, but simply because it was pointless to steal what
would be given to you if you asked for it. There was no right or wrong.

"We had a form of social contract that we called 'marriage,' but it
wasn't the same thing as marriage was in the old days. There was no
love. There used to be a crime called 'adultery,' but even the word had
gone out of use on the Earth I knew. Instead, it was considered
antisocial for a woman to refuse to give herself to other men; to do so
might indicate that she thought herself superior or thought her husband
to be superior to other men. The same thing applied to men in their
relationships with women other than their wives. Marriage was a social
contract that could be made or broken at the whim of the individual. It
served no purpose because it meant nothing, neither party gained
anything by the contract that they couldn't have had without it. But a
wedding was an excuse for a gala party at which the couple were the
center of attention. So the contract was entered into lightly for the
sake of a gay time for a while, then broken again so that the game
could be played with someone else--the game of Musical Bedrooms."

He stopped and looked down at the helpless Kerothi. "That doesn't mean
much to you, does it? In your society, women are chattel, to be owned,
bought, and sold. If you see a woman you want, you offer a price to her
father or brother or husband--whoever the owner might be. Then she's
yours until you sell her to another. Adultery is a very serious crime
on Kerothi, but only because it's an infringement of property rights.
There's not much love lost there, either, is there?

"I wonder if either of us knows what love is, Tallis?"

"I love my people," Tallis said grimly.

MacMaine was startled for a moment. He'd never thought about it that
way. "You're right, Tallis," he said at last. "You're right. We _do_
know. And because I loved the human race, in spite of its stagnation
and its spirit of total mediocrity, I did what I had to do."

"You will pardon me," Tallis said, with only the faintest bit of acid
in his voice, "if I do not understand exactly what it is that you did."
Then his voice grew softer. "Wait. Perhaps I do understand. Yes, of
course."

"You think you understand?" MacMaine looked at him narrowly.

"Yes. I said that I am not a psychomedic, and my getting angry with you
proves it. You fought hard and well for Keroth, Sepastian, and, in
doing so, you had to kill many of your own race. It is not easy for a
man to do, no matter how much your reason tells you it _must_ be done.
And now, in the face of death, remorse has come. I do not completely
understand the workings of the Earthman's mind, but I----"

                     *      *      *      *      *

"That's just it; you don't," MacMaine interrupted. "Thanks for trying
to find an excuse for me, Tallis, but I'm afraid it isn't so. Listen.

"I had to find out what Earth was up against. I had a pretty good idea
already that the Kerothi would win--would wipe us out or enslave us to
the last man. And, after I had seen Keroth, I was certain of it. So I
sent a message back to Earth, telling them what they were up against,
because, up 'til then they hadn't known. As soon as they knew, they
reacted as they have always done when they are certain that they face
danger. They fought. They unleashed the chained-down intelligence of
the few extraordinary Earthmen, and they released the fighting spirit
of even the ordinary Earthmen. And they won!"

Tallis shook his head. "You sent no message, Sepastian. You were
watched. You know that. You could not have sent a message."

"You saw me send it," MacMaine said. "So did everyone else in the
fleet. Hokotan helped me send it--made all the arrangements at my
orders. But because you do not understand the workings of the
Earthman's mind, you didn't even recognize it as a message.

"Tallis, what would your people have done if an invading force, which
had already proven that it could whip Keroth easily, did to one of your
planets what we did on Houston's World?"

"If the enemy showed us that they could easily beat us and then hanged
the whole population of a planet for resisting? Why, we would be fools
to resist. Unless, of course, we had a secret weapon in a hidden
pocket, the way Earth had."

"No, Tallis; no. That's where you're making your mistake. Earth didn't
have that weapon until _after_ the massacre on Houston's World. Let me
ask you another thing: Would any Kerothi have ordered that massacre?"

"I doubt it," Tallis said slowly. "Killing that many potential slaves
would be wasteful and expensive. We are fighters, not butchers. We kill
only when it is necessary to win; the remainder of the enemy is taken
care of as the rightful property of the conqueror."

"Exactly. Prisoners were part of the loot, and it's foolish to destroy
loot. I noticed that in your history books. I noticed, too, that in
such cases, the captives recognized the right of the conqueror to
enslave them, and made no trouble. So, after Earth's forces get to
Keroth, I don't think we'll have any trouble with you."

"Not if they set us an example like Houston's World," Tallis said, "and
can prove that resistance is futile. But I don't understand the
message. What was the message and how did you send it?"

"The massacre on Houston's World was the message, Tallis. I even told
the Staff, when I suggested it. I said that such an act would strike
terror into the minds of Earthmen.

"And it did, Tallis; it did. But that terror was just the goad they
needed to make them fight. They had to sit up and take notice. If the
Kerothi had gone on the way they were going, taking one planet after
another, as they planned, the Kerothi would have won. The people of
each planet would think, 'It can't happen here.' And, since they felt
that nothing could be superior to anything else, they were complacently
certain that they couldn't be beat. Of course, maybe Earth couldn't
beat you, either, but that was all right; it just proved that there was
no such thing as superiority.

"But Houston's World jarred them--badly. It had to. 'Hell does more
than Heaven can to wake the fear of God in man.' They didn't recognize
beauty, but I shoved ugliness down their throats; they didn't know love
and friendship, so I gave them hatred and fear.

"The committing of atrocities has been the mistake of aggressors
throughout Earth's history. The battle cries of countless wars have
called upon the people to remember an atrocity. Nothing else hits an
Earthman as hard as a vicious, brutal, unnecessary murder.

"So I gave them the incentive to fight, Tallis. That was my message."

Tallis was staring at him wide eyed. "You _are_ insane."

"No. It worked. In six months, they found something that would enable
them to blast the devil Kerothi from the skies. I don't know what the
society of Earth is like now--and I never will. But at least I know
that men are allowed to think again. And I know they'll survive."

He suddenly realized how much time had passed. Had it been too long?
No. There would still be Earth ships prowling the vicinity, waiting for
any sign of a Kerothi ship that had hidden in the vastness of space by
not using its engines.

"I have some things I must do, Tallis," he said, standing up slowly.
"Is there anything else you want to know?"

Tallis frowned a little, as though he were trying to think of
something, but then he closed his eyes and relaxed. "No, Sepastian.
Nothing. Do whatever it is you have to do."

"Tallis," MacMaine said. Tallis didn't open his eyes, and MacMaine was
very glad of that. "Tallis, I want you to know that, in all my life,
you were the only friend I ever had."

The bright green eyes remained closed. "That may be so. Yes, Sepastian,
I honestly think you believe that."

"I do," said MacMaine, and shot him carefully through the head.

_The End_


--_and Epilogue._

"Hold it!" The voice bellowed thunderingly from the loud-speakers of
the six Earth ships that had boxed in the derelict. "Hold it! _Don't
bomb that ship!_ I'll personally have the head of any man who damages
that ship!"

In five of the ships, the commanders simply held off the bombardment
that would have vaporized the derelict. In the sixth, Major Thornton,
the Group Commander, snapped off the microphone. His voice was shaky as
he said: "That was close! Another second, and we'd have lost that ship
forever."

Captain Verenski's Oriental features had a half-startled, half-puzzled
look. "I don't get it. You grabbed that mike control as if you'd been
bitten. I know that she's only a derelict. After that burst of
fifty-gee acceleration for fifteen minutes, there couldn't be anyone
left alive on her. But there must have been a reason for using atomic
rockets instead of their antiacceleration fields. What makes you think
she's not dangerous?"

"I didn't say she wasn't dangerous," the major snapped. "She may be.
Probably is. But we're going to capture her if we can. Look!" He
pointed at the image of the ship in the screen.

She wasn't spinning now, or looping end-over-end. After fifteen minutes
of high acceleration, her atomic rockets had cut out, and now she moved
serenely at constant velocity, looking as dead as a battered tin can.

"I don't see anything," Captain Verenski said.

"The Kerothic symbols on the side. Palatal unvoiced sibilant, rounded----"

"I don't read Kerothic, major," said the captain. "I----" Then he
blinked and said, "_Shudos!_"

"That's it. The _Shudos_ of Keroth. The flagship of the Kerothi Fleet."

The look in the major's eyes was the same look of hatred that had come
into the captain's.

"Even if its armament is still functioning, we have to take the chance,"
Major Thornton said. "Even if they're all dead, we have to try to get
The Butcher's body." He picked up the microphone again.

"Attention, Group. Listen carefully and don't get itchy trigger fingers.
That ship is the _Shudos_. The Butcher's ship. It's a ten-man ship, and
the most she could have aboard would be thirty, even if they jammed her
full to the hull. I don't know of any way that anyone could be alive on
her after fifteen minutes at fifty gees of atomic drive, but remember
that they don't have any idea of how our counteraction generators damp
out spatial distortion either. Remember what Dr. Pendric said: 'No man
is superior to any other in _all_ ways. Every man is superior to every
other in _some_ way.' We may have the counteraction generator, but they
may have something else that we don't know about. So stay alert.

"I am going to take a landing-party aboard. There's a reward out for
The Butcher, and that reward will be split proportionately among us.
It's big enough for us all to enjoy it, and we'll probably get
citations if we bring him in.

"I want ten men from each ship. I'm not asking for volunteers; I want
each ship commander to pick the ten men he thinks will be least likely
to lose their heads in an emergency. I don't want anyone to panic and
shoot when he should be thinking. I don't want anyone who had any
relatives on Houston's World. Sorry, but I can't allow vengeance yet.

"We're a thousand miles from the _Shudos_ now; close in slowly until
we're within a hundred yards. The boarding parties will don armor and
prepare to board while we're closing in. At a hundred yards, we stop
and the boarding parties will land on the hull. I'll give further
orders then.

"One more thing. I don't think her A-A generators could possibly be
functioning, judging from that dent in her hull, but we can't be sure.
If she tries to go into A-A drive, she is to be bombed--no matter who
is aboard. It is better that sixty men die than that The Butcher
escape.

"All right, let's go. Move in."

                     *      *      *      *      *

Half an hour later, Major Thornton stood on the hull of the _Shudos_,
surrounded by the sixty men of the boarding party. "Anybody see
anything through those windows?" he asked.

Several of the men had peered through the direct-vision ports, playing
spotlight beams through them.

"Nothing alive," said a sergeant, a remark which was followed by a
chorus of agreement.

"Pretty much of a mess in there," said another sergeant. "That fifty
gees mashed everything to the floor. Why'd anyone want to use
acceleration like that?"

"Let's go in and find out," said Major Thornton.

The outer door to the air lock was closed, but not locked. It swung
open easily to disclose the room between the outer and inner doors. Ten
men went in with the major, the others stayed outside with orders to
cut through the hull if anything went wrong.

"If he's still alive," the major said, "we don't want to kill him by
blowing the air. Sergeant, start the airlock cycle."

There was barely room for ten men in the air lock. It had been built
big enough for the full crew to use it at one time, but it was only
just big enough.

When the inner door opened, they went in cautiously. They spread out
and searched cautiously. The caution was unnecessary, as it turned out.
There wasn't a living thing aboard.

"Three officers shot through the head, sir," said the sergeant. "One of
'em looks like he died of a broken neck, but it's hard to tell after
that fifty gees mashed 'em. Crewmen in the engine room--five of 'em.
Mashed up, but I'd say they died of radiation, since the shielding on
one of the generators was ruptured by the blast that made that dent in
the hull."

"Nine bodies," the major said musingly. "All Kerothi. And all of them
probably dead _before_ the fifty-gee acceleration. Keep looking,
sergeant. We've got to find the tenth man."

Another twenty-minute search gave them all the information they were
ever to get.

                     *      *      *      *      *

"No Earth food aboard," said the major. "One spacesuit missing.
Handweapons missing. Two emergency survival kits and two medical kits
missing. _And_--most important of all--the courier boat is missing." He
bit at his lower lip for a moment, then went on. "Outer air lock door
left unlocked. Three Kerothi shot--_after_ the explosion that ruined
the A-A drive, and _before_ the fifty-gee acceleration." He looked at
the sergeant. "What do you think happened?"

"He got away," the tough-looking noncom said grimly. "Took the courier
boat and scooted away from here."

"Why did he set the timer on the drive, then? What was the purpose of
that fifty-gee blast?"

"To distract us, I'd say, sir. While we were chasing this thing, he
hightailed it out."

"He might have, at that," the major said musingly. "A one-man courier
_could_ have gotten away. Our new detection equipment isn't perfect
yet. But----"

At that moment, one of the troopers pushed himself down the corridor
toward them. "Look, sir! I found this in the pocket of the Carrot-skin
who was taped up in there!" He was holding a piece of paper.

The major took it, read it, then read it aloud. "Greetings, fellow
Earthmen: When you read this, I will be safe from any power you may
think you have to arrest or punish me. But don't think _you_ are safe
from _me_. There are other intelligent races in the galaxy, and I'll be
around for a long time to come. You haven't heard the last of me. With
love--Sebastian MacMaine."

The silence that followed was almost deadly.

"He _did_ get away!" snarled the sergeant at last.

"Maybe," said the major. "But it doesn't make sense." He sounded
agitated. "Look. In the first place, how do we know the courier boat
was even aboard? They've been trying frantically to get word back to
Keroth; does it make sense that they'd save this boat? And why all the
fanfare? Suppose he did have a boat? Why would he attract our attention
with that fifty-gee flare? Just so he could leave us a note?"

"What do you think happened, sir?" the sergeant asked.

"I don't think he had a boat. If he did, he'd want us to think he was
dead, not the other way around. I think he set the drive timer on this
ship, went outside with his supplies, crawled up a drive tube and
waited until that atomic rocket blast blew him into plasma. He was
probably badly wounded and didn't want us to know that we'd won. That
way, we'd never find him."

There was no belief on the faces of the men around him.

"Why'd he want to do that, sir?" asked the sergeant.

"Because as long as we don't _know_, he'll haunt us. He'll be like
Hitler or Jack the Ripper. He'll be an immortal menace instead of a
dead villain who could be forgotten."

"Maybe so, sir," said the sergeant, but there was an utter lack of
conviction in his voice. "But we'd still better comb this area and keep
our detectors hot. We'll know what he was up to when we catch him."

"But if we _don't_ find him," the major said softly, "we'll _never_
know. That's the beauty of it, sergeant. If we don't find him, then
he's won. In his own fiendish, twisted way, he's won."

"If we don't find him," said the sergeant stolidly, "I think we better
keep a sharp eye out for the next intelligent race we meet. He might
find 'em first."

"Maybe," said the major very softly, "that's just what he wanted. I
wish I knew why."


THE END