BATTLE for the STARS

By ALEXANDER BLADE

Kirk had never seen the distant planet
called Earth, yet his squadron was now ordered
there—to stem the outbreak of a galactic war!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
June 1956
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

It was well called the Dragon's Throat, thought Kirk. Throat of fire, of burning suns, a cosmic blind-alley into danger!

You made your decision. You threw a ship, a hundred men, your officers, your friends, your own Commander's badge you threw them all down on the gamble. But when the stakes were stars....

He said to himself, "The hell with it, we're committed."

He said aloud, "Radar?"

Joe Garstang, standing on the bridge beside him, answered without turning. "Nothing has been monitored yet. Not yet."

Kirk's palms itched. If they were running into an ambush, if Orion heavy cruisers were waiting for them, they'd soon know it. There could be ships all around them. Radar wasn't too dependable, in the howling vortices of force-field energy flung out around this jungle of stars.

Through the broad bridge-windows—the "windows" that were really scanners cunningly translating faster-than-light probe rays into visual images—there beat upon his face the light of a thousand suns.

It was Cluster N-356-44, in the Standard Atlas. It was also hellfire made manifest, to starmen. It was a hive of swarming suns, pale green and violet, white and yellow-gold and smoky red, blazing so fiercely that the eye was robbed of perspective and these stars seemed to crowd and jostle and rub each other. Up against the black backdrop of the firmament they burned, pouring forth the torrents of their life-energy to whirl in terrific cosmic maelstroms. The merchant ships that boldly drove the great darks between ordinary star-worlds would recoil aghast from the navigational perils here. Only a fool—or a cruiser—would go in here.

There was a narrow cleft between cliffs of stars, with the flame-shot glow of an immense nebula roofing it. The only possible way into the heart of the cluster, this Dragon's Throat of starman legend. But others had gone in this way. At least, so said the rumors, rumors that had reached the squadron as far away as the Pleiades. Rumors too factual, too alarming, to be ignored.

Rumors of cruisers from the squadrons of Orion Sector, that had gone into this cluster. Rumors of a secret base, on a hidden world. The ships of Orion Sector had no business here. Neither, for that matter, did the ships of Kirk's own Lyra Sector. This cluster was no-man's land, part of the buffer zones that were supposed to reduce friction between the five great Sectors of the galaxy. Actually, these stellar wildernesses were the scenes of constant, nameless little wars.

The five governors of the five great Sectors were, all of them, ambitious men. Solleremos of Orion, Vorn of Cepheus, Gianea of Leo, Strowe of Perseus, Ferdias of Lyra—they watched each other jealously. Five great barons of the galaxy, paying only a lip-service allegiance to the shadowy Central Council far away on a half-forgotten world called Earth, in reality independent satraps of the stars, hungry for space, hungry for power. Yes, even Ferdias, thought Kirk. Ferdias was the man he served, respected, and even loved in a craggy sort of way. But Ferdias, like the others, played a massive game of chess with men and suns, moving his squadrons here and his undercover operatives there, laboring ceaselessly to hold on to what he had and perhaps enlarge his domain, just a little, a solar system here and a minor cluster there....

And the game went on. Right now, Kirk thought he was probably heading into a trap. But if Orion cruisers were in here, he had to know it. A hostile base here, if left to grow, could dominate all the star-lanes from Capella to Arcturus. It was up to him as a squadron-commander, to go in and find out.

Kirk looked at the looming, overtopping cliffs of stars that went up to the glowing nebula above and down to the black pit of absolutely nothing below.

He thought of Lyllin, waiting for him back at Vega. A starman had no business with a wife.

He said again, "Radar?"

"Still nothing," said Garstang. His square face was no less grim than Kirk's. He was captain of this flagship Starsong, and what happened to her was important to him. "If there is a base here," he said, "we should have come in with the whole squadron."

Kirk shook his head. He had made his decision and he was not going to start doubting it now, no matter how lonely and exposed he felt.

"That could be exactly what Solleremos wants. With the right kind of ambush, a whole squadron could be clobbered in this mess. Then Lyra would be wide open. No. One ship is enough to risk."

"Yes, sir," said Garstang.

"The hell with you, Joe," said Kirk. "Say what you're thinking."

"I am thinking that the rumor mentioned cruisers, plural, indefinite. We'd better catch them while they're all asleep."

The Starsong forged her way onward toward the two red suns at the end of the Dragon's Throat. And Kirk thought that if he had made the wrong decision, if the Starsong never came back again, Ferdias would be very angry. But that would not then make any difference to him.

Looking up at the flaring, tumbling waves of the nebula, like the underside of a burning ocean, Kirk said to Garstang:

"Does it seem to you the pace is speeding up? I mean, this jockeying for power between the Sectors has gone on a long time, ever since Earth lost real authority. But it seems different lately, somehow. More incidents, more feeling of something driving ahead toward a definite goal, a plan and a pattern you can't quite see. You know what I mean?"

Garstang nodded "I know."

The computer banks clicked and chattered. Relays kicked, compensating power, compensating course, compensating tides of gravitic force quite capable of breaking a ship apart like a piece of flawed glass. The two red binaries gave them a final glare of malice and were gone. They were clear of the Throat.

A star the color of a peacock's breast lay dead ahead.

"Ready for approach," said Garstang.

"Stand by," said Kirk. "We'll wait until the last possible minute to shift. If they haven't picked us up already, maybe they won't."

Garstang gave his orders. Kirk watched the blaze of peacock-blue grow swiftly. No ambush in the Throat, so now what? Ambush on the world of the blue star? Or nothing? A wild-goose chase, time and money wasted? Or maybe Solleremos had planted those rumors to draw Kirk's attention while a strike was made somewhere else.

Suddenly Kirk felt very old and very tired. He had been in the squadron for twenty years, ever since he was sixteen, and in all these twenty years the great game of stars, the strain, the worry, had never let up.

It must have been nice in a way, Kirk thought, in the old days a couple of centuries ago when Earth still governed in fact, and all the star-squadrons were part of the Galactic Navy, and the great battle was with the galaxy itself and not with one another.

"We're getting close," said Garstang.

Kirk shook himself and got down to business. There followed a few minutes of split-second activity, and then the Starsong had shuddered out of overdrive and was plunging toward a bright world almost dangerously close to her. There was still no sign of any enemy, and the communicators remained silent.

An hour later by ship's chrono they had located the one port of entry listed for the planet and they had set the Starsong down in the middle of a large piece of natural desert that served well enough for what space traffic ever came here.

It was night on this side of the planet. There was no moon, but on a cluster world a moon is a useless luxury. The sky blazes with a million stars, so that day is replaced not by darkness but by the light of another sort, soft and many-colored, full of strange glimmers and flitting shadows. In this eery star-glow a town was visible about a mile away. Otherwise there was nothing. No ships.... No legions of Orion Sector.

"The ships could be hidden somewhere," Garstang said. "Maybe halfway around the planet, but waiting to jump us as soon as they get word."

Kirk admitted that was possible. He put on his best dress uniform of blue-and-silver, and strapped a portable communicator between his shoulders. It rather spoiled the effect, but there was no help for that. Garstang watched him.

"How many men will you want?" he asked.

"None. I'm going in alone."

Garstang's eyes widened. "I won't come right out and say you're crazy."

"I was here once before," said Kirk. "When old Volland was commander and I was an ensign. These people are poor but proud. They have traditions of long-ago splendor, claim their kings ruled the whole cluster and so on. They dislike strangers, and won't let many in."

"But if Solleremos' men are already here—"

"That's the reason for the porto." Kirk frowned, trying to plan ahead. "Exactly twenty minutes after I enter the town I'll contact you, and I'll continue to do so at twenty-minute intervals. If I'm so much as a minute late, take off and buzz hell out of the place. It'll give me a bargaining point, anyway."

Garstang said dourly, "A lot can happen in twenty minutes. Suppose you're not able to bargain?"

"Then you're on your own."

In the airlock, open now and filled with a dry, stinging wind, Kirk paused, looking toward the distant town, a lonely blot of darkness between the star-blazing sky and the gleaming sand. Here and there in it lights burned, but they were few and somehow not welcoming.

"She's all yours," he said to Garstang. "If anything looks wrong to you, don't wait for me. Take her away."

"Yes, sir," said Garstang.

Kirk smiled. He climbed down into the sand and began to walk.

The town took shape as he approached it. The stone-built houses, mostly round or octagonal, were scattered out with no particular plan. Under the red and gold and diamond-colored stars that burned above them as bright as moons, they looked curiously remote and evil, like old wizards in peaked hats, peering with little winking eyes. The dry wind blew, laden with alien scents. Apart from the wind there was no sound.

Three men met him at the edge of the town. They wore pale cloaks and carried long staffs tipped with horn. They were all of seven feet tall. They wore their hair high on their heads to accentuate this height, and they were slender and graceful as reeds, walking along with a light dancing step as though the wind blew them. But their faces in the star-glow were smooth and secret, their eyes as expressionless as bits of shiny glass.

"What does the man from outside desire?" asked one of them, in the universal speech.

Kirk said, "He desires to speak with those others from outside who enjoy your hospitality."

But they were not going to make it that easy for him. Their faces remained impassive, and the one who had just spoken said coolly, "Our lord has wisdom in all matters. Perhaps he will understand your words. I do not."

They fell in around Kirk and moved with him into the wide sandy space that went between the wandering houses. The nerves tightened up in Kirk's belly, and his back felt cold. He looked at his wrist chrono, carefully. There was no sound but the whispering of sand under their feet. Garstang would be watching with the 'scope, but once he was in among the houses he could no longer be seen.

That was almost at once. The tall men walked on with their light swaying stride, so that he had to move at an undignified trot to keep up. The stone houses with their high roofs closed in behind him. This dark and brooding town ill accorded with old tales of cluster-kings, he thought. Yet the past held many things.

When they were close to the center of the town, the leader stopped beside a round structure from whose open door came light.

"Will the man from outside enter the dwelling of our lord?"

Kirk breathed a little easier as he went through the door. Apparently there was no truth to the rumors that....

A chopping blow took him on the back of the head. He fell forward. He was stunned but not unconscious, and he tried to roll over, thrashing out blindly with his fists and feet. But at once there were men on top of him, heavy solid men grinding his face into the gritty carpet, pounding the wind out of him, holding him down.

In a minute his hands were tied tight behind him and his ankles lashed together. They cut the straps of the porto and pulled it off him. Then, like a sack of meal, he was dragged to the wall and propped upright.

In an absolute fury of rage, he spat blood out of his mouth and looked up dizzily into the light.

There were three or four men here, obviously not natives of this planet, but he did not pay much attention to them. The one he looked at stood apart, directly in front of Kirk, a lean dark iron-faced man with very alert eyes, and the easy, dangerous manner of one who enjoys his work because he is so admirably well fitted for it, as a cat enjoys hunting.

He said to Kirk, "My name is Tauncer."

Kirk nodded. He looked with feral interest at this most famous of Solleremos' agents. "I should be flattered, shouldn't I?"

Tauncer shrugged. "We all do what we can, Commander. Each in his own way."

"Well," said Kirk. "What do you want?"

"The answer to one simple question."

His face came closer to Kirk's, very tense, very keen, searching for any sign of evasion.

He asked his question.

"What is Ferdias planning to do about Earth?"

CHAPTER II

There was a long moment of complete silence, during which Kirk stared wide-eyed at Tauncer, and Tauncer probed him with a gaze like a scalpel.

On Kirk's part, it was a silence of sheer astonishment. No question could have taken him so unexpectedly. He'd been prepared to be grilled on squadron dispositions, forces in being, bases, all the things that the men of Orion Sector would like to know about Lyra. But this—

It didn't make sense. Earth was not part of the present-day star struggle. That old planet, so far back in the galaxy that Kirk had never been within parsecs of it—it was history, nothing more. It had had its day, its sons long ago had spread out to the stars and their blood ran in the veins of men on many worlds, in Kirk himself. But its great day had long been done, and the Sector governors who played the cosmic chess-game for suns paid it no heed at all.

"I'll repeat," said Tauncer softly. "What's Ferdias planning to do about Earth?"

"I haven't," said Kirk, "the faintest idea what you're talking about."

Tauncer sighed. "Possibly." He straightened up. "Even probably. But I've been sent here to make the inquiry, and I'll need more than your word and an expression of innocence. Brix!"

One of the other men came forward. Tauncer spoke to him in a low voice, and he nodded, and went into the shadows across the room. Kirk's heart pounded in alarm. He tried to get up, but he had been too well bound. He could not see his chrono, but he did not think that more than seven or eight minutes had elapsed since he had entered the town. Plenty of time for mischief. He said to Tauncer,

"I didn't walk into this with my eyes completely shut. My men have instructions."

"I'm sure they have. And don't feel too badly about this, Commander. The details of the trap were based on a minute study of your psychology and past record. It would have been almost impossible for you to avoid falling into it. Can't you hurry that up Brix?"

"All ready." Brix came back carrying a light tripod with a projector mounted on it. And now Kirk's heart sank coldly into the pit of his stomach. He had seen that particular type of projector before. It was called a vera-ray, and it beamed electric impulses in a carefully-controlled range that absolutely stunned and demoralized a man's brain, making him temporarily incapable of lying or resisting questioning.

Kirk had no information about Earth to give away. But there were plenty of other things in his mind, things of military importance to Lyra Sector that Solleremos would be only too glad to get hold of.

How long now? Ten minutes more? Too long. Even five minutes would be too long, with that projector pounding his skull.

He couldn't get up, but he could roll. He rolled, acting on a split-second reflex that caught even Tauncer by surprise. The projector was only four or five feet away. Brix and the other men were on top of him again almost at once but not quite in time. He fetched the tripod a thrashing kick, with both his feet bound together. It fell over. He could not hope that it was broken, not on this soft carpeted floor, but it would take them time to set it up again.

He tried to keep them busy as long as he could, but Tauncer understood perfectly well what he was up to. He pulled his men off and set Brix to adjusting the projector again, and turned to Kirk.

"You may as well spare yourself, Commander. I have my mission, and the military have theirs. There are three cruisers standing off and on, just out of radar range—they got word the moment you landed, and they're already on their way."

He smiled briefly. "The price you pay for fame, Commander. The Fifth is Ferdias' elite squadron, and nobody gets command of it unless he's in Ferdias' special favor."

"Friendship is one thing," said Kirk hotly, "and favor is another. I don't like your choice of words."

He was just talking, words, sounds with no meaning. Inside he was thinking of Garstang and the Starsong, and all the lives of all the men in her. He had led them here.

He looked at Tauncer, and he began now to hate him, with a hate as deep and cold as space.

"Ferdias will tear your heart out," he said.

"Perhaps," said Tauncer. "But he may have other things to occupy his mind."

"Earth? He's never been there. None of us have. It's only a name, and a half-forgotten one at that. Why should Earth occupy his mind? Why, Tauncer?"

How long is twenty minutes? How long does it take three cruisers to come from Point X beyond radar range to Target Zero? How long does it take a man to realize he's through at last?

Brix said again, "All ready."

Tauncer nodded.

Brix touched a stud on the projector.

As though that touch had done it, a dull and mighty roaring echoed from the desert—the full-throated cry of a heavy cruiser taking off.

The men looked, startled, toward the door. Desperately, Kirk rolled sideways, out of the force that was already battering at the edges of his mind.

"You out there!" he shouted at the doorway. "The men from outside avenge treachery! Call your lord—"

One of Tauncer's men kicked him alongside the jaw. Kirk shut up, hanging with blind determination to his consciousness. Fore-thought had provided this one chance. He would not get another. He did not dare to miss it.

The cruiser came low over the town. Dust sifted out of the cracks of the stone walls. The men fell to their knees, covering their heads with their arms. The floor rocked under them, beaten by the rolling hammers of concussion.

The ripped sky closed upon itself with a stunning, thundering crash. After a minute or two the noise and the shock wave ebbed away.

Silence.

The men began to get up again. But Kirk did not move.

The cruiser came back. This time it was even lower. Garstang must have tickled her belly on the peaked roofs. Christ, thought Kirk, he's overdoing it. This time the stones were shaking loose. When it was over, a long thin shape came in through the doorway. It was the leader of the tall men who had brought Kirk here.

His face was a mask of fear and rage as he spoke to Tauncer. "You said that if we helped you, you would keep all other outsiders away!"

"We will," said Tauncer. "Listen—"

"Yes, listen," mocked Kirk. "Listen to it coming back. It'll keep coming back, unless I walk out of here—until your town is flattened."

The tall man stood hesitating. Then the Starsong roared back over. When it was gone, he picked himself up and with a knife cut the cords around Kirk's wrists and ankles.

"Oh, no," said Tauncer, starting forward. "You can't—"

The tall man turned on him a face livid with frustrated anger. "Shall the children of cluster-kings be destroyed to serve you? Shall I call my people in?"

Kirk, scrambling to his feet, saw outside the door the crowd of tall, pale-cloaked men who had gathered. Tauncer saw them too, and stopped.

As Kirk picked up the porto and started for the door, the man Brix cried violently, "Are we just going to stand here?"

Tauncer said levelly, "Why, yes, there are times when you do just that. But I think we'll see the Commander again."

Kirk went out through the door and through the crowd outside it. No one followed him. He got the porto working and talked fast to Garstang, then dropped the porto and sprinted out of the town toward the desert.

The cruiser dropped down ahead of him, as black and big against the stars as a falling world. The lock yawned open, and Garstang was inside it to meet him. He started to ask what had happened, but Kirk pushed him bodily away down the corridor, heading for the bridge.

"Get in there and do your stuff, Joe. We've got three Orion cruisers on our tail, as of the time we landed."

At that moment they heard the voice of the radarman crying out in sudden anguish, "Sir!"

Garstang said in mild reproval, "You ought to give a man more time, Commander. Radar, what's the bearing? All right, stand by—"

Orders crackled over the intercoms. Men moved swiftly at the control-banks. The last thing Kirk heard before the howling roar of take-off drowned everything was Garstang complaining that this sort of thing was hard on a ship. Then there was a dull crash from somewhere outside. The Starsong was shaken as though by a great wind. Both Kirk and Garstang had weathered enough fire to know that she had taken no hurt. But the Orion cruisers were in range now, bearing down on them in normal space at planetary speeds. The next shell would likely be a good deal closer. They dared not wait for star-room to go into overdrive.

"Hit it!" yelled Kirk. Garstang threw the relays open. Sirens shrilled and the lights went dim. The Starsong shuddered vertiginously.

And then they were in overdrive and racing out toward the twin red suns that guarded the entrance to the Dragon's Throat.

The scanners and ultra-speed radar came into play, replacing normal instruments, making an illusion of sight. And the voice of the radarman said dismally,

"They're still with us, sir. F-Type cruisers, heavy-armed and plenty fast."

For the next quarter of an hour the Starsong gained velocity at a suicidal rate, but the Orion cruisers would not be left behind. The radarman called their coordinates in a steady sing-song and Garstang ordered more power and more power, keeping one eye on the stress indicators and the other on the overhanging star-cliffs of the Throat that seemed to be leaping toward the ship.

There was a limit. You could not take the Throat too fast. In that swarm of suns a ship's fabric could be torn apart in some swift tide of gravity, or vaporized in collision. Garstang had already passed the limit. But the Orionids were refusing to be bluffed.

Kirk said nothing. This was Garstang's job, and he let him do it. But he watched the indicators as closely as the captain. Under his feet and all around him he could feel the Starsong quiver, wincing and flinching like a live thing now and again as some wild current wrenched at her. His gaze flicked upward to the nebula, like a fiery thundercloud above the Dragon's Throat, and then to the shoaling suns below, with the narrow pass between them. The twin red stars of the binary flashed by and were gone.

Suddenly, in the screen that mirrored space astern, a tiny nova flared and winked away. The Starsong trembled, like a running deer that hears the hunter's gun.

"Wide astern," said Garstang. He looked at the cleft of the Throat and shook his head. "But we'll have to slow down for that, and they know it. They'll have time to range us before they come in themselves. They won't," he added grimly, "have to come in."

Kirk nodded. "So we'll fool them. We won't go into the Throat either."

Garstang stood silent for a moment. Then he said, "I was hoping you wouldn't think of that."

"Have you a better idea? Or even a worse one?"

"No." Garstang took a deep breath and spoke into the communicator. "New course, north and zenith, forty degrees. We're running the nebula. On full autopilot. If anyone wants to pray, go ahead."

The Starsong shot upward, plunging high into an area so choked with stellar radiance that it made the Dragon's Throat seem like empty space. The manual control-banks were dark and dead. From the calc-room back of the bridge a new sound came, different from the normal occasional outbursts of chattering. This was a steady sound, a sound of authority, the voice of the Starsong speaking. She was flying herself now. The men aboard, Captain and Commander, able spaceman and ensign, were her charges, dependent on her wisdom and her radar vision and her strength. There was nothing they could do but wait.

The Starsong spiralled higher, her radar system guiding her on a twisting path between the clotted stars. Then Kirk saw a great glowing edge slide onto the screen and grow into a vastness of dust and cosmic drift illumined by the half-smothered stars it webbed.

The Orionid cruisers had altered course and were coming after them. But the Starsong was already skimming through glowing arms that reached like misty tentacles searching for other stars to trap and feed upon. Once in the cloud, she would be screened from the cruiser's radar beams by the most effective scrambling device in space, the nebula itself.

Effective. Yes. But potentially as deadly as Orionid warheads. The only difference was that with the nebula you had a chance. Against three cruisers you had none.

Kirk strapped himself into the recoil chair beside Garstang. Nothing moved now within the ship. The frail, breakable organism of breath and heart and bone were encased in protective webs. This was the hour of the ship, the hour of steel and flame and the racing electron, faster than thought.

The Starsong spoke to herself in the calc-room, and plunged headlong into the cloud.

CHAPTER III

The universe was swallowed up in golden light, in racing, streaming tides of luminous dust. Like an undersea ship of old the Starsong raced with the gleaming currents and burst through denser, darker deeps where the stars were faint and far away, to leap once more into a glory of wild light where the drowned suns burned like torches in a mist. And the voice in the calc-room rose to an unhuman crying as the computers strained to take in the overwhelming surge of data from defensive radar, analyze it, and send imperative commands to the control-relays.

It had almost a sound of insane music in it, that voice, and the Starsong danced to it, whirling and swaying between the fragments of the drift that threatened her with instant destruction if she faltered for a fraction of a second. Kirk, half-dazed, clung to his padded chair and gasped for breath, and felt, and listened.

The same illusion gripped him now that had mastered him before when forced to run a cloud—the feeling that the suns and star-worlds were all gone, that he was enwrapped in the primal fire-mists of creation. Mighty tides seemed to bear the ship forward, everything was a boil and whirl of light, millrace currents seemed to rush them endlessly through infinity, with all space and time cancelled out. He wondered briefly, once, how the Orionids were doing, and then forgot them. The agony, the intoxication, the godlike joy and the terror were far too great to admit any petty worries about anything human.

Then, with almost shocking abruptness, they broke into clear space, and the cloud was behind them. Like men enchanted waking from a dream, Kirk and Garstang shook themselves and stood erect again, and the voice of the Starsong was stilled, and human voices spoke once more.

And human problems were still with them. Somewhat farther astern now, but still doggedly following, three tiny flecks of darkness came after them out of the cloud.

Kirk went into the com-room and made contact with his squadron far ahead. He gave crisp orders, and then rejoined Garstang on the bridge.

"Larned's on his way," he said. "Can you keep clear?"

"I can," said Garstang, and ordered full power. He had nothing between him and the Pleiades now but light-years of elbow room, and he took full advantage of it. The Orion cruisers apparently had intercepted Kirk's message, and made a frantic last attempt to overhaul him.

When that proved impossible, and their trial shots fell so far short that it was obvious the range could not be made before the Starsong reached the point of convergence with the squadron, they turned tail and ran back for the cluster. When the squadron did arrive, space was empty of everything but themselves and the distant stars.

The hard, excited voice of Larned, Kirk's Vice-Commander, came rapidly as they joined the squadron.

"So there is an Orionid base in there! By God, we'll soon—"

"No," Kirk cut in. "There was no base in there. There was a trap, for me—only I still don't know just why they set it."

He went to the com-room and set up a message on the coding machine. Top secret, to Ferdias at Vega, briefly detailing his encounter with Tauncer.

"—am unable to explain interest in Earth, and your plans concerning. Suggest attempt to distract from some other objective? Await instructions. Kirk."

In a remarkably short time the answer came back.

"Report Vega at once with full squadron." And it added, "Unfortunately, no distraction. Ferdias."

Looking at the cryptic tape, Kirk had an uneasy feeling that he had all unknowingly stepped over one of those thresholds into a new phase of existence, where nothing was going to be quite the same as it had been ever again. He had once more that premonition that the pace, the tempo of the great game for suns, was about to step up still faster.

He said nothing of that to Garstang or the others. To them, the unexpected recall to home base meant an unlooked-for leave. And to him, it would mean returning to Lyllin sooner than he had hoped. But even that could not quite banish his uneasiness.

The squadron wheeled in tight formation and set its course toward the great blue-white sun that burned in Lyra, capital of a mighty Sector that was in everything but name an empire of stars.

When they made their world-fall, when the squadron swept down through the bluish glare over Vega Town and landed on the spaceport, Larned came at once from his own ship. The Vice-Commander, a blocky, brusque and competent young man, bristled with questions.

"What the devil is all this about, Kirk? Pulling us in like this—"

"I haven't an idea," Kirk said. "But I'm about to find out. Call Lyllin for me and tell her I'll be along soon."

An air-car with a uniformed driver took him across the great city. It was really two cities. The older city of graceful white towers had been built long ago by the native Vegans, Lyllin's people. But then, more than a century ago, the starships had come to Vega, the first wave of explorers and colonizers from the inner galaxy. They had not been all Earthmen, even though that wave had first started from Earth. By the time they reached here, Earthmen had already mixed and mated with many other human star-folk. It was these newcomers who had built the new part of Vega Town.

It was to the newer city that the air-car took him, to the looming, dominating mass of Government house. A lift took him down from the roof, and he went through the corridors, a tall man with a faintly worried look on his copper-bronzed face. Efficient secretaries shunted him smoothly and quickly into a room few people ever entered.

It seemed a small room, to be the center of government of so many stars. For this was the center—the Sectors each had their elected legislatures but it was the Governors who wielded the power.

"Stop saluting, Kirk," said Ferdias. "You know you're at ease when you step in here."

Ferdias came around the desk. He limped, from the crash of a Class Twenty long ago. But you never remembered his limp, or how small a man he was. You saw only his face, and when you saw it you knew why, at the age of forty, he was one of the five great Governors.

"Now let's have it," he said.

Kirk let him have it, the full story of the trap in the cluster. And Ferdias' face got just a trifle longer.

He said, finally, "You had no business going in alone. But since you got out, I'm glad you did it. For I'm sure now of what I only suspected before. In his eagerness to find out how much I know, Solleremos has told me what I wanted to know."

Kirk, frankly puzzled, said, "I just don't get it. What is Ferdias planning to do about Earth? What plans would you have about it?"

Ferdias limped back to his chair, and sat down, and then looked up keenly. "Kirk, you're at least half Earth blood. Tell me, how do you feel about Earth?"

Kirk said, "But I've never been there. You know that—I was born in a transport off Arcturus, and have never been farther back in than Procyon."

"I know. But what do you think about Earth?"

Kirk made a gesture. "What's there to think about? It's a third-rate planet, from what I hear, important only because star-flight began there. Its Galactic Council tried to hold all the galaxy together in one government, but of course that proved impossible. Hell, it's hard enough to hold a Sector together, let alone the whole galaxy."

"But Earth isn't any of the Sectors, of course," said Ferdias.

Kirk looked at him keenly. "Of course not. Sector Governors don't touch Earth's small federal district...." He stopped. He said, after a moment, "Or do they? Do they, Ferdias?"

"Solleremos would like to," said Ferdias.

Kirk was astonished. "You mean, he wants to take Earth into Orion Sector?"

"He wants to very much indeed," said the other. "Listen, Kirk. Solleremos' pressure on our borders lately has been only cover-up. It's Earth he's after."

"But why? That unimportant little star system—"

"Is it so unimportant?" Ferdias' blue eyes, hot and flaring now, fascinated Kirk. "Materially, maybe it is—a worn-out, third-rate world. But psychologically, it's a very important world indeed. Think of the Earth blood mingled in all the galaxy races now—in you and in me, in half the civilized peoples! Think of the feelings they have, perhaps without altogether realizing it, toward that old planet they've never seen! They know it no longer directs things, they know its Council and Navy are a shadowy sham—but still it's Earth, it's the old center of things, the old heart-world. Suppose one of the other Governors gets Earth into his Sector, and speaks from it thereafter?"

Kirk saw it now. He realized, not for the first time, that when it came to galactic intrigue he was a babe in arms.

It would give any of the rival Governors a colossal psychological advantage, to make the old center of the galaxy his seat of government. Commands that came from Earth would have a psychological potency hard to withstand.

"But you're not going to let Solleremos get away with it?" he exclaimed.

"No Kirk. I don't want Earth. But I'm not going to let Orion Sector grab it, either!"

He went on. "Solleremos knows I'll try to stop him. That's why he had Tauncer, his right-hand man, set that little trap for you. They know I trust you. They hoped I'd have told you how I plan to block them."

Kirk looked at him, and then said, "How are you going to stop them?"

Ferdias said, "There's a big celebration coming up on Earth soon. The two-hundredth anniversary of the first space-flight from Earth. It means a lot to them. Their Council invited me to send an official delegation to represent Lyra Sector. So I'm sending you."

Kirk stared. "Me—to Earth? But what can I do if—"

Ferdias interrupted. "The Fifth Squadron will go with you. To take part in the commemoration pageant, the fly-over."

Now Kirk began to understand. "Then if Solleremos tries anything, the Fifth will be there waiting for him?"

"Exactly." Ferdias spoke the word like a wolf-snap. "I know Solleremos' intentions. I know about when he plans his grab for Earth. Earth can't stop him, not with their small forces. But the Fifth can!"

Kirk felt a bit stunned. Fighting the hidden border wars of the rival Governors was one thing. But a full-fledged struggle between Sectors, back there at old Earth, was quite another. It could rock the galaxy....

Ferdias went on matter-of-factly, "You'll take off five days from now. You may be there a while, so you'll take full supply auxiliaries and transports."

Kirk looked up. Transports meant the families of all personnel would accompany the squadron—and that meant Lyllin would go with him. He was glad of that.

"But when we get there," he said. "Besides taking part in that celebration, what do we do?"

Ferdias said, "Go and look up your ancestral home."

"My—what?"

"Ancestral home. Place where the Kirks came from, on Earth. I had it hunted out, and it's still standing. It's in Orville, a place near the city New York. You go and look it up first thing."

Kirk began to get it. "You'll send me orders there?"

"You'll hear from me. And you'll get warning if Solleremos moves on Earth. But Kirk—one more thing."

"Yes?"

"You're not to talk of this to anyone. Anyone."

Kirk, as the air-car took him homeward across the city, hardly saw the brilliant Vegan capital flashing by beneath. He was badly worried. A deadly, secret galactic struggle was moving toward crisis, and he was not the man to combat conspiracies, he was no good at plots and plans. But—and his jaw set hard—if Solleremos did try to grab Earth by force, there was one thing the Fifth was very good at, and that was fighting.

He couldn't tell Lyllin about any of this, not against Ferdias' strict injunction. But at least she would be going with him this time, and that would be good news to her. He strode eagerly into the metalloy cottage that was home to him. Its familiar rooms were cool and silent. He found Lyllin waiting for him on the terrace.

The blue sun was touching the hills, and the sky was flooded with a purple dusk. Lyllin came toward him. She was all Vegan and looked it, her flesh showed pale as new gold, with the darker masses of her hair picking up the same tint and turning it to copper. She was dressed in the fashion of her own people, in a chiton so mistily transparent that her fine slender body seemed to be draped in a bit of the oncoming dusk itself.

He held her, and then told her his news, and was surprised that it did not seem to make her happy. "To Earth?" she murmured. "Just for the space-flight anniversary? It's strange—"

"But this time you'll be with me," he said. "Not on the voyage—you'll ride transport, of course—but on Earth, all the time I'm there."

"How long will that be, Kirk?"

He didn't know, and said so. Lyllin's face shadowed subtly. But she had a way of silence, and it was not until later that night that she spoke of it.

She said, suddenly, "I shall hate it at Earth."

Kirk was shocked. "But why in the world? That's ridiculous. A place you've never seen, and hardly know about—"

"It's your place, your people. Not mine." She was not looking at him. "You'll be going home. But what will they think of me there? What will you think of me there, among your own people?"

Kirk turned her around with rough and angry hands. "I'm ashamed of you. If you could even think a thing like that—" He shook her. "Listen to me. Earth is no more to me than it is to you. It's a name, a place where my grandfather five times removed happened to be born. I've as much blood of other worlds in me as Earth blood. And as for you—"

Her eyes had tears in the corners of them, now. Her mouth was soft and uncertain, like a child's. He said, in a different tone, "No matter where we go, you'll be Lyllin. And I'll love you."

She came close in the circle of his arms, and she kissed him with a wild possessiveness. And her lips were bitter with those sudden tears.

But Kirk felt that she was not convinced. She had the Vegan pride, and if they treated her at Earth like a freak, an alien....

In the depth of his soul, he cursed Solleremos and his ambitious schemes. For the worry that was in him had deepened. The danger that the Fifth was going into, the danger that would explode if that unscrupulous grab for the old planet was attempted, was not the only one. He felt now that beside that there was another, subtler danger waiting for Lyllin and himself at Earth.

CHAPTER IV

The squadron was out of overdrive, cruising at normal approach velocity. There was a sun ahead in space. Compared to the blazing giants of deep space, it was not much, merely a small yellow star looking rather lonely in the midst of a great emptiness. Kirk studied it. The Sun. Not just any sun, the Sun. How should he feel about it? Like a child seeing its father for the first time, or like a man returning to an ancient hearth that has long ago lost any meaning for him? Kirk searched his heart, and nothing came. It was only another star.

Garstang touched his arm and pointed, to where far off a little green planet swung to meet them.

"Earth."

The squadron rushed toward it, the cruisers and supply-ships and transports, the men and women and children, strangers from the far reaches of the galaxy. And yet not quite strangers either, for the names that had come from this world were still among them, and the traditions, and even some of the blood. Two hundred years ago, their forefathers had left it. And now they were coming back.

A quiet had settled on the bridge. Kirk supposed it was the same with the whole squadron, everybody staring and thinking his or her own thoughts. He wondered what Lyllin was thinking, and wished she were with him instead of back there in one of the transports.

Earth came closer. He could see clouds, and the white splash of a polar cap. Closer still, and there were seas, and the outlines of continents. Colors began to show more clearly, and the land became ridged with mountain chains. Great lakes took form, and dark-green areas of forest, and winding rivers. A nice world. A pretty world. Kirk hated it. Its other name was Trouble.

"Why did Ferdias have to pick us for this job?"

Unconsciously he had spoken aloud, or loud enough for Garstang to hear. "It's only for a visit," said Garstang. "Just a celebration. What's wrong with that?" His tone was mild, without mockery.

But Kirk looked at him sharply. He knew that Garstang and Larned and all his other officers and men must have been talking and wondering. Wondering why they'd been pulled out of their needful place for this rather meaningless celebration.

They came down past the shoreline of a blue-green ocean, past a city that sprawled over islands and peninsulas and up inland river valleys, and then beneath them was a big spaceport. The squadron roared in to its appointed landing, bristling on its best behavior, every ship set down with masterly precision, and there was a crowd assembled there to meet it. Flags whipped in the wind. The brassy music of a band blared out, immensely stirring with a solemn throb of drums beneath it.

The men of the Fifth debarked and formed in marching order, every boot polished and every uniform immaculate, a solid line of blue and silver glittering in the soft blaze of this golden sun. Kirk felt the heat of it in his face. His heels struck solidly on the ground, and the wind touched him, balmily, laden with fragrances strange to him. And he thought, "This is Earth." He looked around at it.

He could see only the spaceport, and that was old and worn and poor. The tarmac was cracked and blackened, the ancient buildings weathered. Opposite the squadron were drawn up twelve cruisers with the old insigne of the Galactic Navy on their bows, and with their crews standing at attention in front of them. Those old, small ships—why, they were Class Fourteens, obsolete for years! He supposed they were all Earth had.

Two men walked toward him. One was a middle-aged civilian, the other an arrow-straight, elderly man in black uniform that also bore the old Navy insigne. He stiffly returned Kirk's salute.

"Nice landing, Commander," he said. "I'm First Admiral Laney, and I welcome your squadron."

Incredulously, Kirk realized that the old admiral was keeping up the pretense that the Fifth Squadron was still part of the Navy.

It was so preposterous it was funny! Not for a century had the old Galactic Navy had any real existence. Its staff never sent any orders out to the squadrons of the five Governors, any more than Central Council dared send orders to the Governors themselves. Yet this old Earth officer was trying hard, in front of the crowd, to act as though he really were Kirk's superior officer....

Then, seeing the faintly desperate look in Laney's eyes, Kirk softened. After all, what difference did it make—it was only a pretense and he felt sorry for the old chap trying to play this part.

He saluted again and said, "Fifth Squadron, Kirk commanding, reporting for orders, sir!"

A look of grateful relief crossed Laney's face. He said uncertainly, "At ease, Commander. Let me present Council Chairman John Charteris."

Charteris, a graying, eager, anxious man, shook hands warmly. He began a little speech, into the tele-cameras close by. "We welcome back one of the gallant squadrons of the Galactic Navy to take part in our commemoration of—"

When the speeches and handshaking and bandplaying were over, Kirk gave an order, and his men broke ranks. Larned came up to him.

"Shall we debark our people now?"

The old admiral told Kirk, "Quarters are all ready for them."

Charteris said, "But you and your wife, Commander, must be my guests."

They walked back between the lofty, looming ships. The women and children and babies of the men of the Fifth started coming out of the transports, and efficient Earth officers began smoothly shuttling them into cars to take them to their quarters. From around the fences, a big crowd of Earth folk watched interestedly.

Of a sudden, for the first time his men's families seemed a little outlandish to Kirk. The women and children were of so many different star-peoples, so many different ways of speech and dress. He looked resentfully for amusement in the Earth faces, but could not detect any.

At the transport he excused himself and went in to Lyllin's cabin. He stopped short when he saw her. He had never seen her like this. She wore an Earth-style dress of impeccable lines, was perfect in a smart, sophisticated way. She still didn't look like an Earthwoman, not with that skin and eyes and hair. But she looked stunning, and he said so.

"I'm glad I look civilized enough for your people," Lyllin said sweetly.

"My people?" Kirk drew back stiffly. "So you're still brooding on that? That's fine. I'm not in a tough enough spot here, my wife has to get super-sensitive and make it tougher."

Lyllin's expression changed. "What kind of spot?" He was silent. She looked at him steadily. "It's something dangerous, isn't it?"

"I'd have told you if it were something I could tell you," he said. "You know that. Will you forget it? And forget about these people being my people!"

He went out with her, and Lyllin went through the introductions, cool and proud. Kirk told Larned aside, "Two-day leaves for all personnel in regular rotation. Port facilities will take care of refitting and fueling."

Larned grunted. "I've seen better facilities on fifth-rate planets. Plenty old! But we'll make out."

Charteris' car swept them along a broad highway to New York. It had a stiff, strange look to Kirk, its vertical towers huddled together bold and black against the setting sun. He thought it a cramped and crowded place, though Charteris' terrace apartment high above the myriad lights was pleasant.

There was a dinner there that night, and drinks, and more speeches, and much talk about the Commemoration. Sector politics were unobtrusively avoided. Kirk fretted and worried through it all. What was Solleremos doing, where were his squadrons? Ferdias had said he'd get warning if they moved, but would that warning come in time?

In the morning, he found Charteris oddly changed. He looked at Kirk with a queerly doubtful expression.

Kirk said, "Before we make arrangements about the Commemoration, I—"

"Oh, there's no hurry about that," Charteris said hastily. Then suddenly he asked, "Do you know if Orion Sector will send a token squadron too?"

Alarm rang a bell in Kirk's brain instantly. What was behind the question? Had Charteris heard something that he hadn't?

He answered, "Why, no, I don't. But surely you would know—"

Charteris continued to eye him with that dubious expression as he said, "We sent an invitation to Governor Solleremos to take part, of course. But doubtless we'll soon hear from him."

Kirk thought swiftly, he has heard something—something that he doesn't want me to know! But what? Was Orion already moving, were Orionid forces coming to Earth on the excuse of the celebration, just as he had?

He'd get no information from Charteris. He'd better contact Ferdias, as quickly as possible. He was only a naval commander, and he felt an enormous desire for definite orders in this crisis. He could only get such orders at the rendezvous Ferdias had told him to go to.

Kirk said casually, "While I'm here on Earth I want to look up my ancestors' old home here, and now would be a good time. It's in a village not too far away, I understand. If we could borrow a ground-car—"

Charteris seemed glad to comply. "Of course. A sentimental pilgrimage, in a way? Very understandable—"

Kirk refused the offer of a driver. But by the time he and Lyllin got out of New York and were rolling northward, he almost regretted that decision. It seemed ridiculous for a man who could pilot a squadron half across the galaxy in full overdrive, but the traffic frightened him. He hadn't done much driving, and certainly none on highways like this big northern boulevard. On this crowded Earth, people apparently still used ground-cars in great numbers for short distances, and it was not until they branched off on a subsidiary highway that Kirk felt easy.

He said then, "I want to explain about this ancestral home business."

Lyllin, looking straight ahead, said, "You don't have to explain. It's perfectly natural that you should want to see where your people came from."

"Will you stop behaving like a woman and listen?" he said angrily. "My people, again. What the devil would I care where my seventh great-grandfather lived. I'm doing what Ferdias ordered." He added, "I wasn't supposed to tell you even that, but I couldn't very well go off on this supposed sentimental pilgrimage without you."

Lyllin's expression changed. "Then there'll be someone from Ferdias to meet you there secretly, is that it? And I'm not to know about what?"

"That's it," he said. "Ferdias' orders were not to tell anyone."

He thought that Lyllin looked somehow relieved. "I don't mind. I'm worried, I wish I knew, but it's all right if you can't tell me."

It came to him that she was relieved to learn he didn't really care about his Earth ancestors, that that had only been an excuse.

Kirk felt a sharp relief himself, to be on his way to Orville, to the old house there where Ferdias' agent would be waiting to tell him what to do. In this gathering crisis he couldn't act blindly! It was vital to get directive information as soon as possible.

They turned off the big boulevard onto quiet, tree-lined back roads. These roads were old and rambling, accomodatingly twisting around hills and ponds and even houses. Some of the houses were modern chromaloy villas, but there were antique stone houses also, and once he and Lyllin both exclaimed when they saw a very old house that was built all of wood.