EIGHTEEN

Huang Gun had slept soundly in his strange, new environment, so soundly that upon awakening he wondered if he had been given some kind of sleeping potion. He felt curiously at peace.

The chamber in which he had arrived at this comfortable state was quite dark, the only faint light coming from the series of half a dozen eye-sized holes penetrating the wall opposite the large cell's single door.

He could hear the voices of the people in the next room, beyond the perforated wall, but he did not want to look at them again. So he sat down and meditated.

When we set out to explore the Galaxy, a couple of hundred years ago, we did not realize that it was ultimately ruled by Death... How could we have known that, then? We were all caught up in our little lives, thinking that our little world was all that mattered. Wondering, hoping, trying to find the right way to live.

...what we have learned finally, after much pain and suffering, is that there is no proper way to live. No honorable way, no way consistent with the truth. We must come to grips with the fact that life itself is the great mistake...

His meditations were interrupted. A machine had entered, and was beckoning to him, bidding him come closer to the perforated wall. The irregular row of neatly bored holes ranged in diameter from about one centimeter to about two. Most of them were slightly below Huang Gun's eye level when he was standing.

His guardian was silently indicating one of the holes. As if something might be happening, on the other side, that it wanted him to see.

The executioner looked. The young cadets, or most of them, were on their feet, and moving desultorily about. Obviously his new master wanted him to observe, and listen to them.

On the bridge of the flagship there was a discussion, not very productive, about the possibility of devising new tactics.

The flagship's display systems, like everything else aboard, had taken something of a beating. Suddenly, temporarily, erratically, the central holostage on Morholt's bridge was occupied by a rush of moving recorded images, little dots and assorted other symbols, green for Twin Worlds and red for the supposedly aggressive Huveans. In a moment Radigast realized that the display represented the swirling choreography for some old maneuvers.

Taken by surprise at the appearance of these relics, he wiped them away with a savage gesture of his hand.

Gregor had resumed his old position in the acceleration couch immediately at the admiral's right. "What was that?"

"Nothing real, just some motherless battle plans. We made what seemed a huge bloody number of different ones, for the war we once thought we were going to fight."

The admiral went on: "Those were the days. Somehow we were stuck on the idea that we'd be fighting some relatively reasonable opponent, like another fleet. Bloody quaint, what?"

Subordinates were trying to get the admiral's attention. In a moment he was giving more orders for the remnant of the Twin Worlds fleet, augmented by the horde of scouts recalled from the outer defenses, to deploy itself in a last hopeless attempt to fight off the berserker.

Gregor knew without being told that the picture on the stage was once more showing him a version of present reality. Those hundreds of scoutships made an impressive image, but the admiral had no need to tell him that they were all but useless against a foe that beat off battleships like so many irritating insects.

Whatever else might happen, they were going to have to try to defend their home.

In a few moments, Admiral Radigast had called up another inventory on his holostage. This one showed all the fixed military installations in the outer reaches of the Twin Worlds system, facilities occupying a dozen or so airless satellites of several dim and frozen planets. So far the berserker had been totally ignoring those distant worlds, as if it were well aware that the opportunities for killing out that way would be strictly limited.

Nor were those bases going to be of much use in repairing damaged warships. All the docks capable of handling big ships were in the inner system, on natural or artificial satellites of the two home worlds. Those in orbit around Prairie had already been destroyed.

Radigast's memory told him what the situation in the outer system was, but he had called for a listing in hopes that this time his memory would be proven faulty.

Angrily he complained to the world in general. "There's not even a bloody docking space out there, not a single one that'll take a motherless dreadnought. What were we thinking of when we built like that?"

Gregor saw him spit out his chewing pod, then from the corner of his eye caught a glimpse of the housekeeping device that snatched the offending object out of the air before it could stain the deck, and slurp it away for disposal. Probably the housekeeping system had adapted to the admiral's habits, and had a unit stationed near him constantly when he was awake.

Radigast's latest inventory did indicate that two smaller docking spaces were available at one base, on the largest moon of the least remote of the outer planets. This offered a spot where repairs could be made that were impossible to carry out on a ship in deep space, because they necessitated shutting down vital onboard systems. These were facilities designed and used primarily for training, and for repair and maintenance work on the ships and machines patrolling the outer reaches of the system. No human crews were on them now.

The admiral gave orders for a couple of his destroyers, seriously battered ships but with their drives still functioning, to get out there and see what they could do about getting themselves back into shape. They were about the only surviving ships he thought could benefit from an interval in airdock. The necessary tools and parts should be stored and available on site.

It might have seemed a futile gesture, but it was something to be done, and he thought it could be some small help to morale. And it stood as a sign to all survivors that they were not on the brink of giving up.

"If anyone in the fleet is thinking along that line, he or she has got a short bloody memory. Certain people on our side have tried that already, and it didn't work."

That sounded to Gregor like an oblique reference to the former president and the executioner, and Gregor frowned, thinking the admiral should not have made it. But no time to worry about that; Radigast was muttering that if the attacker went after his two battered little ships, that would at least give the people on Timber a few hours of breathing space.

Thinking aloud he pondered what, during that time, his own next move should be? Ought he to further divide his remaining fleet, in the face of what was demonstrably a superior force?

Of course the monstrous enemy might just stay where it was, continuing its probing attacks on the planet Timber, while holding most of the planet's communications paralyzed. If it should send some of the small machines it had already used after his two crippled destroyers, why then he, Radigast, could straggle along with his remaining fleet.

"Maybe a couple of motherless battered battleships will be able to give the little ones a fight."

Running down the short list of possibly useful things that could be done with some very limited assets, he came quickly to the next item: before the shooting started up again in earnest, someone should give all the crews an inspiring speech. "I'll have it piped on a short delay to all ships," he concluded, giving Gregor an inquiring look.

The acting president only gave his head a tired shake. To which the admiral replied with a tired nod. Evidently neither of them were ready to attempt that sort of thing just now.

But Gregor, when he had allowed the question to nag him for a few more minutes, began to see inspiring the crew as his inescapable duty.

It was duly announced that the new acting president had something to say to all the crews. The decades of political practice took over, and almost automatically Gregor began to speak. When he stopped talking, three minutes later, he could hardly remember anything he'd said.

The admiral was conferring frequently with his engineers, both human and optelectronic. Had Morholt reached its present condition through some accidental disaster, Radigast might well have ordered the crew of his flag vessel to abandon ship. But now the idea of doing so barely crossed his mind, even though the dreadnought could barely move, it still retained considerable firepower.

"That is, we still possess what was once considered to be considerable firepower. Though how much good it's likely to do us..."

Gregor again felt that he had to say something. He repeated: "Not your fault, Admiral."

"Keep telling me that, Mr. President. Not my motherless fault, no. But it's my bloody responsibility."

Another problem was to find the best way to use the growing swarm of scoutships, the chief military asset the admiral still possessed.

Before he could reach a decision, the enemy tried to take it out of his hands. The berserker, which could hardly fail to be aware of the gathering swarm, launched more destroyer-like killers to probe the loose formation, test it and disrupt it.

The face on the central holostage was that of the captain of one of the remaining dreadnoughts, raising the possibility that he and his crew might soon be forced to abandon ship.

The admiral slammed down a hand; not a very big hand, but it made a big noise and everybody jumped. Including the captain, whose image seemed to lean back as Radigast's leaned forward.

"I'll say it one more bloody time: In case you didn't notice, surrender's already been tried, and it seems that in this war it doesn't work. The next people to raise this suggestion are going to wish they hadn't."

But even as Radigast spoke, he wondered if his duty lay not in pressing suicidal attacks, but in trying to save the only assets he could save, the remnant of his fleet. It might soon represent the only remaining piece of the Twin Worlds, an exiled fragment with the duty to show and tell the rest of humanity, warn them of the monstrous peril they now faced.

To himself he thought: Maybe Belgola was right about one thing anyway, even if he did have his head stuffed full of hardware. This fight is hopeless.

Without even giving the matter much thought, Gregor the diplomat could readily enough call to mind the names of two or three other worlds, in particular those who had also had disputes with Huvea, where orphaned fragments of a Twin Worlds fleet and government might find shelter, and planet-space on which to live their human lives, and where human ears would be grateful for a warning.

There would only be one dream left to live for, that someday his surviving crews and ships, restored to health and strength, would form some key part of a massed human power. On that day, the combined fleets of a score of worlds, with weapons and shielding much improved, would sweep this murderous abomination out of the Galaxy altogether...

Radigast knew the idea of saving what was left of the fleet was something he was going to have to discuss with Gregor, and soon. But not yet. With billions of his people about to be slaughtered on the ground, he couldn't give up on the fight that he was in.

"Yes sir. But if the admiral is suggesting we try ramming that monster, well, it's not going to work with this ship. We'll be blown to atoms before we even get close."

"I wasn't suggesting that. I wasn't bloody suggesting anything. I was asking for your motherless ideas."

"I wish we had some to give you, sir."

There came a sudden distraction, in the form of a robot courier: a new alarm was being sounded, out on the outer defensive perimeter of the Twin Worlds system.

The news hadn't hit them yet, but Radigast was suddenly certain what it was going to be. An exchange of glances went round the circle of human faces, seeking and not finding hope.

What is the very worst thing that could happen at this moment?