The Spectre General

its emission slot. Ozaki grabbed it and scanned it eagerly. At the top was printed in red, “Identity. Unknown,” and below in smaller letters, “Suggest check of trace pattern on base analyzer.” He gave a sudden whistle as his eyes caught the energy utilization index. 927! That was fifty points higher than it had any right to be. The best tech in the Protectorate considered himself lucky if he could tune a propulsion unit so that it delivered a thrust of forty-five per cent of rated maximum. Whatever was out there was hot! Too hot for one man to handle alone. With quick decision he punched the transmission key of his space communicator and sent a call winging back to War Base Three.

XI

Commander Krogson stormed up and down his office in a frenzy of impatience.

“It shouldn’t be more than another fifteen minutes, sir,” said Schninkle.

Krogson snorted. “That’s what you said an hour ago! What’s the matter with those people down there? I want the identity of that ship and I want it now.”

“It’s not Identification’s fault,” explained the other. “The big analyzer is in pretty bad shape and it keeps jamming. They’re afraid that if they take it apart they won’t be able to get it back together again.”

The next two hours saw Krogson’s blood pressure steadily rising toward the explosion point. Twice he ordered the whole identification section transferred to a labor battalion and twice he had to rescind the command when Schninkle pointed out that scrapings from the bottom of the barrel were better than nothing at all. His fingernails were chewed down to the quick when word finally came through.

“Identification, sir,” said a hesitant voice on the intercom.

“Well?” demanded the commander.

“The analyzer says—” The voice hesitated again.

“The analyzer says what?” shouted Krogson in a fury of impatience.

“The analyzer says that the trace pattern is that of one of the old Imperial drive units.”

“That’s impossible!” sputtered the commander. “The last Imperial base was smashed five hundred years ago. What of their equipment was salvaged has long since been worn out and tossed on the scrap heap. The machine must be wrong!”

“Not this time,” said the voice. “We checked the memory bank manually and there’s no mistake. It’s an Imperial all right. Nobody can produce a drive unit like that these days.”

Commander Krogson leaned back in his chair, his eyes veiled in deep thought. “Schninkle,” he said finally, thinking out loud, “I’ve got a hunch that maybe we’ve stumbled on something big. Maybe the Lord Protector is right about there being a plot to knock him over, but maybe he’s wrong about who’s trying to do it. What if all these centuries since the Empire collapsed a group of Imperials have been hiding out waiting for their chance?”

Schninkle digested the idea for a moment. “It could be,” he said slowly. “If there is such a group, they couldn’t pick a better time than now to strike; the Protectorate is so wobbly that it wouldn’t take much of a shove to topple it over.”

The more he thought about it, the more sense the idea made to Krogson. Once he felt a fleeting temptation to hush up the whole thing. If there were Imperials and they did take over, maybe they would put an end to the frenzied rat race that was slowly ruining the galaxy—a race that sooner or later entangled every competent man in the great web of intrigue and power politics that stretched through the Protectorate and forced him in self-defense to keep clawing his way toward the top of the heap.

Regretfully he dismissed the idea. This was a matter of his own neck, here and now!

“It’s a big IF, Schninkle,” he said, “but if Fve guessed right, we’ve bailed ourselves out. Get hold of that scout and find out his position.”

Schninkle scooted out of the door. A few minutes later he dashed back in. “I’ve just contacted the scout!” he said excitedly. “He’s closed in on the power source and it isn’t a ship after all. It’s a man in space armor! The drive unit is cut off, and it’s heading out of the system at fifteen hundred per. The pilot is standing by for instructions.”

“Tell him to intercept and capture!” Schninkle started out of the office. “Wait a second; what’s the scout’s position?”

Schninkle’s face fell. “He doesn’t quite know, sir.”

“He what?’* demanded the commander.

“He doesn’t quite know,” repeated the little man. “His astrocomputer went haywire six hours out of base.”

“Just our luck!” swore Krogson. “Well, tell him to leave his transmitter on. We’ll ride in on his beam. Better call the sector commander while you’re at it and tell him what’s happened.”

“Beg pardon, commander,” said Schninkle, “but I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Why not?” asked Krogson.

“You’re next in line to be sector commander, aren’t you, sir?”

“I guess so,” said the commander.

“If this pans out, you’ll be in a position to knock him over and grab his job, won’t you?” asked Schninkle slyly.

“Could be,” admitted Krogson in a tired voice. “Not because I want to, though—but because I have to. I’m not as young as I once was, and the boys below are pushing pretty hard. It’s either up or out —and out is always feet first.”

“Put yourself in the sector commander’s shoes for a minute,” suggested the little man. “What would you do if a war base commander came through with news of a possible Imperial base?”

A look of grim comprehension came over Krogson’s face. “Of course! I’d ground the commander’s ships and send out my own fleet. I must be slipping; I should have thought of that at once!”

“On the other hand,” said Schninkle, “you might call him and request permission to conduct routine maneuvers. He’ll approve as a matter of course and you’ll have an excuse for taking out the full fleet. Once in deep space, you can slap on radio silence and set course for the scout. If there is an Imperial base out there, nobody will know anything about it until it’s blasted. I’ll stay back here and keep my eyes on things for you.”

Commander Krogson grinned. “Schninkle, it’s a pleasure to have you in my command. How would you like me to make you Devoted Servant of the Lord Protector, Eighth Class? It carries an extra shoe ration coupon!”

“If it’s all the same with you,” said Schninkle, “I’d just as soon have Saturday afternoons off.”

XII

As Kurt struggled up out of the darkness, he could hear a gong sounding in the faint distance. Bong! BONG! BONG! It grew nearer and louder. He shook his head painfully and groaned. There was light from some place beating against his eyelids. Opening them was too much effort. He was in some sort of a bunk. He could feel that. But the gong. He lay there concentrating on it. Slowly he began to realize that the beat didn’t come from outside. It was his head. It felt swollen and sore and each pulse of his heart sent a hammer thud through it.

One by one his senses began to return to normal. As his nose re-assumed its normal acuteness, it began to quiver. There was a strange scent in the air, an unpleasant sickening scent as of—he chased the scent down his aching memory channels until he finally had it cornered—rotting fish. With that to anchor on, he slowly began to reconstruct reality. He had been floating high above the floor in the armory and the captain had been trying to get him down. Then he had pushed a button. There had been a microsecond of tremendous acceleration and then a horrendous crash. That must have been the skylight. After the crash was darkness, then the gongs, and now fish- dead and rotting fish.

“I must be alive,” he decided. “Imperial Headquarters would never smell like this!”

He groaned and slowly opened one eye. Wherever he was he hadn’t been there before. He opened the other