As she flew home to San Ann to join her husband, who was standing by watching the progress of the airors fleet by reading the Empire monitors, which, in Addition to the signals detectable by Empire on a local basis, broadcast a beam receivable only on Texas, she felt a moment of doubt. Had she participated in a plan which would result in the death of hundreds of young men? She shook her head. No. She had confidence in them, those young men. There was a strange aura of strength about Lex Burns. Moreover, she believed in their mission. She was one of a pessimistic few, among whom Arden Wal was a standout, who felt that in a face-to-face battle Texas was destined to lose. She believed in the mission. Had she been given the opportunity, she would have been out there with them. Into the periphery.
She could read their position on the larger star charts. Their signal was loud and clear and moving in leaps as they blinked deeper and deeper. Toward far Centaurus, hidden now and then as fields of force blanked the signal, emerging ever deeper into Empire space.
It was decided, in the second week, to explain to worried friends and relatives why two thousand Texicans, mostly young, were missing from their regular stations. The Empire fleet was still running practice missions over in the galaxy, ever building, and the population was bored with reports which said that the situation was still tense, critical, but showed no change. The nation, Belle Resall decided, needed some positive news for a change.
'We can now announce,' she said on a planetwide trid broadcast, 'that steps are being taken to alleviate the tense situation in which we find ourselves. Numbers of our young men are in secret training to strike a blow to the very heart of our enemy.'
The announcement was brief and cryptic. There was a Texican spy on Earth itself. There could, therefore, be Empire spies on Texas, or in near space. But saying that the blow would be struck at the heart of Empire would throw the enemy off guard, had he detected the blink signals of the airors fleet which, at that time, was boring deeper into the galaxy. Saying that the men were in training would make the enemy think that the blow would be long in coming, rather than imminent, as it was.
A planet buzzed with speculation. Hearts swelled with pride as families and friends realized that old so-and- so's unexplained absence meant that he was a part of the strike force.
Meanwhile, a mobilized planet put aside the things of peace and prepared for the ultimate battle. All production capacity was geared for war. Every able-bodied man was in uniform. Women manned the factories. Always a thinly populated, community-conscious world, the planet was drawn into even closer empathy among its people. There was a spirit of shared danger. People smiled and spoke on the streets. Teenage girls manned detection stations. Neighbor helped neighbor. Some luxury items fell into short supply as the resources were spent in the building of more and more ships of the line. But there was a plenty of food as city dwellers turned out en masse to harvest crops. The birthrate began to rise as thousands of baby male Texicans were born, Belle Resall's horde, they were called.
Now and then, as he blinked, cramped, living on wakers, eyes feeling as if they were full of desert sand, Lex thought of one future edition of himself, an unborn member of Belle's horde, his son. And he thought of his wife and of Texas and, in brief periods of sleep, alone in the small dome of his
He didn't like his dreams. He told himself that they were the result of his physical discomfort, for his dreams had always been pleasant ones.
But now they were anything but pleasant. One recurring nightmare never failed to break through the fatigue and bring him awake, grunting, moaning. He saw a beloved, familiar figure, clothing soiled and torn, a vile red stain covering all» limbs bent unnaturally. He saw blood. And he saw Riddent. Riddent dead. His urge was to turn around, forget the mission, but he found a strength which pushed him on and on.
Chapter Nine
The total mass of two thousand airorses would not equal that of one Empire Middleguard. Spread over a volume of space limited only by the necessity to keep in voice contact the airors fleet became mere motes in nothingness, detectable only by the signals sent ahead by the power of the blink generator. These could have been easily detected by any Empire ship, were, in fact, detected numerous times by the Emperor's patrol ships. However, the signals were being generated, when first detected, deep within Empire space and investigation proved space to be empty.
The very strength of the blink signals led to a result predicted by Arden Wal. At first the power signal of simultaneous blinks by two thousand generators raised alarms. Then, reports filed properly, the Empire, involved as it was in assembling the largest fleet ever to be massed, while keeping a suitable force opposing the traditional enemy, discounted the signals as an unexplained phenomenon in the warp of space and assigned half a dozen scientists to investigate and advance a theory. Without leaving the comfort of the various laboratories in which they worked, the scientists postulated a minute bubble in the fabric of space and time, a moving bubble with random patterns zigzagging from the periphery into more dense portions of the galaxy in the general direction of Centaurus. Since the bubble avoided mass, skirting stars and black holes and planets, it was concluded that it would, in time, wear itself out without doing any damage. Had not a dozen investigations been made? Had not the finest detection instruments found nothingness in the area of the signals? The Emperor's fleet was equipped with the finest in instruments. Instruments don't lie. The space-time bubble theory was officially accepted at fleet headquarters and the attentions of the brass were returned, once more, toward the continuing buildup of force, a force which would, once and for all, establish the Emperor's power and teach those upstart Texicans a lesson.
Meanwhile, two thousand young Texicans and three Empire renegades blinked and rested, cursed the close quarters, tried to keep life in aching, cramped muscles with isometric exercise. They fed on space rations, recycled water and air, rode fifty pounds of expand down the long star lanes, making random jumps into nowhere, but always returning to the line leading them toward Centaurus.
For the rest of his life Lex would remember the thrill of pride he'd felt upon lifting from the sands, two thousand strong, in perfect formation, riding the tiny vehicles with their enlarged domes into the high air and then, on a signal, entering space with one long blink, power sizzling from tiny plants which generated the force which could throw many times the mass of an airors into the finite distance.
Since they knew the fleet positions it was possible to escape detection by Texicans on the way out. Texas was not monitoring the planet itself for unauthorized movements, but was facing galaxy-ward. So the first long blink threw them beyond the main forces of Texas and a second blink, using the double-blink generator, removed them from odd scouts and advance guards in the big emptiness between the isolated star, Zed, and the beginnings of space matter on the rim of the galaxy.
At first, they flew familiar routes, but chose not to enter the Empire through Cassiopeian space. They sat astride, able to relax only partially by leaning backward against the near side of the life dome. Legs, pointing downward, ached. Eyes strained, after the first few near sleepless day periods. And around them was a vastness which was intimidating enough when one had the security of the hull of a spacer around him and which was an awful, aching emptiness to a lone man riding astride a tiny vehicle meant primarily for sport and planetary transportation.
Mere voice chatter was so lovingly slow that conversation was unrestricted among the groupings and that chatter helped pass the time. By the time broadcast talk traveled the distances between the fleet and the nearest Empire planet, even a stray ship beyond the limits of their local detectors, the fleet would have moved on to success or failure. Behind them at each blinkcharge point, the radio waves radiated outward, carrying with them the light, bantering talk of young men trying to pass the long wait with an oft-heard joke, a semi-witty remark or simply boylike rememberings of how it was to ride in the hist herding contest. Voices lived in the form of modulated waves, would live, perhaps, traveling through limitless space, after the flesh and blood vocal cords which had formed the sounds had decayed.
During the trip inward, toward the goal, Lex had ample time to consider such morbid thoughts, to question his decision to take the battle to the Empire. But in dim history an honorary Texican had said, 'I leave this rule for others when I'm dead, be sure you're right —then go ahead,' and that old rhyme had surfaced from somewhere down in the depths of Lex's school memories and, as he blinked ahead of his group into Empire, he liked the simplicity of it. Be sure you're right. He had to be right. He'd seen the vast extent of the Empire. He'd spent two years in the Empire's service studying their power, their vastness, their arrogant disregard for the right of the individual, and he knew that the Empire would never leave Texas alone unless, in some way, Texas made things so hot, so costly, that the pragmatic policy makers back on the old Earth would decide that the price was too high to pay. And, while Empire would scarcely blink at the loss of a million men, being blessed or cursed with a surplus of
