couple of years back, a real mad idea. But this proves that no idea is so mad that there isn't someone – or something somewhere just mad enough to try it.'
'Would you kindly tell us just what the hell you are talking about?' John snapped.
'Happily. Here is what you do if you have unlimited energy and plenty of time. Say you got a solar system like our own solar system. You've been mining the habitable planets, namely, Earth, for a long time, drilling wells and that kind of thing. So what happens? You know what happens. You start nmning out. The wells run dry, the minerals are all used up, and things begin to look poorly. Of course you can send spaceships to other planets to open mines, but there is a problem in logistics and getting the stuff back and so forth. So what you do, if you are set up for it, and somebody really was if we can believe this slide, you rearrange the whole solar system. You bash all the planets and moons together, which melts them up, and then you extrude this molten gunk through a large orifice until you get a long tube of the stuff, and then you flatten the tube so you have like a long plank or maybe a ribbon in space. After that, all you have to do is join the ends of the ribbon together so they stick and you got a big hoop which rotates around the sun.'
'What have you been drinking – or smoking?' John asked suspiciously.
'Come on! You asked for the theory, so I'm giving it to you. I'm not telling you how to do it, just what to do. So, you have this hula hoop floating around the sun, and after a while it cools down so you can land on it and plant trees and bring the people and the animals and such back and you have a real nifty world. You build the thing at the correct distance from the sun so the temperature is just right, and all the time the same since there is no night and day since the thing doesn't rotate but spins instead. You've also arranged so that all the minerals are easily available and can be dug up by strip mining. What resources you have! A planet like Jupiter has maybe a million times as much minerals as poor old Earth. So with plenty of raw materials, sunshine, peace, and prosperity you can throw away the birth control pills and just let the population grow. This hula hoop world will have like a billion times the surface available for population, so it will be a long time before you fill it up. All in all it may sound like a nutty idea, but if you can get it to work, you have a good deal going.'
'Or the Lortonoi have a good deal going,' John mused, looking at the slide, and a sudden chill passed over them all.
What mischief those monsters could create if they controlled a hoop world like this one! The same black thought, possessed them all at the same time, and an aura of gloom obsessed the room. It was John who finally broke the dark silence, and there was a cheery note to his words.
'Cheer up, guys! It's always darkest before the dawn!'
'Piss off, you pollyannaish sod,' Jerry muttered, wishing they had thought to bring the brandy with them.
'I mean it. Aren't we forgetting this?' He took the tiny golden sphere from his shirt pocket and tossed it, glinting, into the air. 'Things have to get worse before they can get better. So let us hope that the Lortonoi are really up to some loathsome piece of nastiness out there, something so awful that we can report to the Chachkas and get Krakar to polish them off once and for all. I hate to sound like a warmonger, but the worse things get now, the better they will be in the long run.'
Jerry laughed aloud. 'You're right, you know. So let's fire up our entire fleet of battle cruisers and space battleships and go out there and see if we can cause some real trouble!'
18
THE MIGHTIEST ARMADA – LAUNCHED!
It was a mighty armada of space the likes of which had never been seen before in the lenticular galaxy, or in the nearby spiral galaxy, or in any galaxy for that matter. Representatives of a thousand races were here, sentient creatures who were physically different in every way; rocklike Felsenig from the ten gravity world of Felsen, fairylike Guntzel-pogue from the tenth gravity world of the same name, snakelike Slangeorm, vegetablelike Karotene, sluglike Caracoller – and thousands more. If you were to put them in the same room together – it would have to be a rather large, air-conditioned room – it really would be a kind of loathsome sight. But what is beauty except in the eye of the beholder, and some of these things, aliens rather, didn't even have eyes. But they had loved ones and mates, sometimes up to sixteen when there were that many sexes, as with the Jigajig, who did almost nothing except that because it was so complicated. They knew the heights of elation, the depths of despair. They were free. Well, most of them were. And the despots were usually kind despots. But what mattered was that each one of these free races were living their lives in the way they wanted and were not being ruled by outsiders. They had joined together under the banner of freedom to fight against the loathsome Lortonoi, who would have ruled and crushed them all.
At the heart of the immense fleet was the former space armada of the Hagg-Loos, donated by the Hagg- Inder, who had won the final battle and instantly stripped their insane relatives of all capacity to wage further war. Stretching out on both sides, and back into the distance as far as the eye could see, were the spacers of all the other races. Here they were, the volunteers from worlds who had known the terror of the Lortonoi and would do anything to fight that galactic menace, spaceships from free worlds that knew you could not subdivide liberty and were willing to fight for that cause, great thundering spacers from other free worlds who wanted to stay free and 'voluntarily' donated a few spacers to the fleet when it hovered above their planets. They were all here – and what a heterogeneous sight it was! Mile-long gray metal battleships, fast, needlepointed scouts, great lumbering gunships made of small planetoids on which giant space cannon had been mounted.
While, there, up front, leading this tremendous fleet, was the silver form of the Pleasantville Eagle! Old Glory had been painted proudly on both sides of her immense tail, with the United Nations flag much smaller down below. Wings spread like the eagle she was, she stayed there in the van. Beware, Lortonoi, because the Galaxy Rangers are on the prowl. Shake with fear in your dank dens though you may, justice is coming closer, light-year by light- year, with every passing moment.
A banquet had been spread in the lounge of the old Eagle. Whiter than white tablecloths and sparkling silver drew the eye, while the nose twitched with appreciation at the succulent smells emerging from the kitchen. The top echelon of the Galaxy Rangers gathered for a last celebration before the space armada reached the star Diesun and its strange satellite. John, as Ranger Number One was at the head of the table, with the other Earthmen on each side of him. Sally would, they hoped, join them later; meanwhile, she was sweating it out in the galley with her assistants. The other Rangers crowded the tables, shoulder to shoulder, drinking and laughing together irrespective of the color of their skins; black, red, white, green, polkadot, all mingled and drank. Except, of course, for Lord Prrsi and the other red-hot races who had a heated corner to themselves. Loud laughter rose, hearty shouts, and an occasional belch. This was comradeship indeed, the likes of which had never been seen before. After they had dined and Sally had showered and joined them, John tapped on his wineglass for attention, and an expectant hush fell.
'Rangers, our moment of destiny is upon us. Our agents throughout the lenticular galaxy report no activity by the Lortonoi. We have driven them from refuge to refuge until now they have reached the end of their rope and have holed up upon the strange construction circling the nearby sun, Diesun. They are trapped! And we are upon them. There will be a battle, and there will be bloodshed, but it will all be in a noble cause. To destroy the Lortonoi is worth any sacrifice. . . .'
'Ooooooonnnnh. . . .'
This ghastly sound broke through his words and silenced him, a keening wail of agony from the centermost table. A chair fell over, and a plump green figure writhed on the rug.
'Aid for that Ranger!' John ordered. 'He has been taken ill.'
'Don't touch him!' another green alien, not unlike the first, cried out, jumping to his feet. 'Pipa and I are of the same race, from the planet Bachtria, and I recognize the symptoms. Our race is an ancient one, and we are possessed of psionic abilities like no other. Normally these psi powers lie dormant, but occasionally, in periods of immense stress, when something strange looms in the future and coming events cast their shadows before them, why, then those sensitives of our race manage to break through the temporal barrier. This is happening at this moment to my colleague, Pipa, now writhing there upon your rug. His body is now only a shell while his ego moves into the future. Soon it will return with a message, and you must all be silent and listen. I know not what that message will be, but I do know that it will be a matter of grave importance, of life and death, for at no other times
