going to be caught down. I'll repeat that. The Fifth is not going to be caught down!'
Whatever was in his voice finally got through to Mallinson. He looked at Birrel, a look of trapped frustration and pure dislike.
'I'll call Charteris,” he said finally. “It'll be up to him.'
Birrel nodded. “I'd make it all very clear to him, if I were you.
He went back out into the soft darkness, and Vinson and Garstang followed him. He said to Vinson, “You don't mind my wife staying with you a little? I don't want her alone here.'
'Lord, no, she's welcome,” said Vinson. “But you—'
'I'll be busy for a while,” said Birrel, and added, “One way or another.'
Now began hurried movement around the scout. Kane's voice could be heard ordering some of the men to get flitters and bring them to this place, giving others instructions for the securing of the senseless men inside the scout.
Birrel waited.
Mallinson finally came to him.
'I told Charteris,” said Mallinson. “It's up to him. If he considers Lyra a bigger threat than Orion, your ships will be hit when they take off.'
Joe Garstang said a coarse word. “In my eye! You won't take on us and Solleremos too!'
Mallinson said nothing to that. He said stiffly to Birrel, “You're to return with us to New York. The flitters will be here in a minute.'
He strode away, and looking at his stiff, unyielding back, Birrel wished he was as confident as Garstang. There was an obstinacy about these Earthmen that he was beginning to recognize, and it worried him so deeply that, for a moment, he considered calling Brescnik and cancelling his order.
No. Somewhere, out there in the starry sky, Solleremos’ sneak strike must be on its way, and no one knew how near. The Fifth was going out to meet it, even if it had to fight its way out.
CHAPTER 17
No missile had been fired.
The scouts of the Fifth had taken off, and later the light cruisers, and the deadly launchers that ringed New York spaceport had remained silent. Now the scouts were well outside the system of Sol, quartering like restless hounds, while the light cruisers moved, in tight formation and at reduced speed, beyond the big ball of poison-and- ice that was called Saturn, all of them waiting for orders.
Birrel was beginning to think that there would be no orders for anyone, if the argument went on much longer. He had been in this room high in the UW tower for almost an hour, expostulating, pleading, reasoning, and he had got nowhere. He was tired. His head still ached and his side was still half-numb. He was not sleepy, pills had taken care of that, but he felt sore and worn out. He was beginning to have a conviction that Earthmen were foredoomed by their own pigheadedness, and that it would bloody well serve them right.
He looked along the table and saw hard unfriendliness and distrust in every face. Not only in the faces of Charteris and Mallinson but also in those of old Admiral Laney and his staff. He could understand politicians being stupid enough to sit around a table and gabble, even in a crisis like this. He could not understand naval officers doing such a thing. No wonder, he thought, bitterly, that the United Worlds had failed to maintain its sway, if this was the way it had faced up to crises.
'The answer, again, is no,” Charteris said stonily. “The Fifth Lyra will act under UW command, or it will not act at all.'
'It's not a question of command,” said Birrel. “It's a question of strategy.'
'We will determine the strategy,” Charteris said.
Birrel pushed his chair back and got up from the table. He repressed the things he wanted to say. He turned his back on them and went over to the window and looked out, fighting for self-control. If he blew his stack now, they were all in trouble.
It was two-forty-five in the morning, but the streets of the old city still glowed with vari-colored light, stretching away beneath the UW tower like a vast gridiron of gleaming lines. The pleasure places would be jammed again with the crowds that had flocked here for the commemoration. They had not the faintest idea what this commemoration was going to be like. Not one word of the situation had gone out in the newscasts.
Just as well, Birrel thought. These Earth folk would not believe it anyway, they were so armored in obstinate pride. They thought of their world as the start of everything, the fountainhead, and they resented the fact that the outer worlds had fallen away, they disliked the Sectors. But they had never dreamed that one of the Sectors might turn against them, any more than a father dreams that his children may turn and attack him. Well, in a way, it was a true analogy. That thought took some of the rage out of Birrel and he turned back to the hostile, silent group around the table.
He went past them to the big depth-chart of the Solar system and its immediate stellar environs, which filled the whole end of the room. Sol and its planets and the nearer stars were perfectly projected, so that, when Birrel stepped into the chart, he was like a giant shouldering through the galaxy.
There was a line of red light in the chart, beginning out in the direction of Scorpio and extended toward Sol. The captured Orionid captain of the scout had talked, under the probe. The big computers two floors down had taken the coordinates he had yielded, and had extrapolated from them to show the approximate course of the two squadrons that were coming. The red line was like a dagger pointed at Earth's heart.
'They've made a long circle around,” Birrel said. “They're coming in from directly opposite the direction of Orion, the least expected direction—'
Admiral Laney interrupted. “We've gone over that. We'll meet them. But this is the UW's fight and your squadron will obey UW orders, if it goes with us.'
Birrel looked into the old admiral's frosty eyes and said, and meant it, “Sir, I would be proud to fight under you. But facts are facts. The UW fleet, no matter how long and honorable its history, cannot meet and match an Orionid squadron. This is a fact. Another fact is that there are few miracles in warfare. If your fleet and the Fifth meet the Orionids head-on, the odds are that we'll lose. I am just as proud of the Fifth Lyra as you are of your fleet and its traditions, but I still say we'll lose. We've only one chance to even the odds and that is surprise.'
'Surprise, in these days of long-range radar?” said an officer incredulously.
'It can be done,” Birrel said steadily. “It has been done, more than once, out in the fringe-clusters between the Sectors.'
He turned around to the depth-chart again and pointed to a blurred and speckled area lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
'Here you seem to have a natural chevaux-de-frise, to borrow an ancient term. I'd like to make use of it. Do you know your way around in it?'
'The Asteroid Belt?” said Laney. “Yes, we know it.'
'If you could bait the Orionids in there, entangle them, in the drift—” Birrel began.
The old admiral interrupted. “Do you suppose that they're that simple? To follow us in there, knowing that the Fifth Lyra is, somewhere on their flank?'
'They won't know that, if we can work it right,” Birrel said earnestly. He left the chart and came back to the table. “The Fifth's heavy cruisers will take off. Presently long-range radar will show the whole Fifth heading outside this system toward Orion as though to intercept a possible direct attack from that direction.'
'But—'
'But it won't be the Fifth they range,” Birrel continued. “An equal number of ships — merchant-freighters, ore-tubs, anything you can grab together fast, will assemble beyond your fifth planet and move out impersonating the Fifth. Long-range radar can't tell the difference. And half of our fast scouts will go with this dummy squadron to keep Orionid scouts from getting close enough to use short-range radar.'
Charteris looked at Laney, a question.
It might be done,” said Laney. “The dummy squadron, I mean. Let's have the rest of it.'
'Simple,” said Birrel. “Your UW fleet baits the Orionids so that at least a significant portion of their strength is
