shoved violently for the arsenal.
The Gorzuni all had private arms, but the ship’s, collection; was not small. A group of sentries remained at the door, defending it against all corners. They had a portable shield against blaster bolts. I saw our flames splatter off it and saw men die as their fire raked back at us.
“We need a direct charge to draw their attention, while a few of us use the zero gravity to soar ‘overhead’ and come down on them from ‘above,’ ” said Manuel’s cold voice. It was clear, even in that wild lightning-cloven gloom. “John, lead the main attack.”
“Like hell!” I gasped. It would be murder. We’d be hewed down as a woodsman hews saplings. And Kathryn was waiting—Then I swallowed rage and fear and lifted a shout to the men. I’m no braver than anyone else but there is an exaltation in battle, and Manuel used it as calculatingly as he used everything else.
We poured against them in a wall of flesh, a wall that they ripped apart and sent lurching back in tattered fragments, It was only an instant of flame and thunder, then Manuel’s flying attack was on the defenders, burning them down, and it was over. I realized vaguely that I had a seared patch on my leg. It didn’t hurt just then, and I wondered at the minor miracle which had kept me alive.
Manuel fused the door and the remnants of us swarmed in and fell on the racked weapons with a terrible fierceness. Before we had them all loaded a Gorzuni party charged us but we beat, them off.
There were flashlights too. We had illumination in the seething dark. Manuel’s face leaped out of that night as he gave his crisp, swift orders. A gargoyle face, heavy and powerful and ugly, but men jumped at his bidding. A party was assigned to go back to the slave pens and pass out weapons to the other humans and bring them back here.
Reinforcements were sent to the engine room. Mortars and small antigrav cannon were assembled and loaded. The Gorzuni were calming too. Someone had taken charge and was rallying them. We’d have a fight on our hands.
We did!
I don’t remember much of those fire-shot hours. We lost heavily in spite of having superior armament. Some three hundred humans survived the battle. Many of them were badly wounded. But we took the ship. We hunted down the last Gorzuni and flamed those who tried to surrender. There was no mercy in us. The Gorzuni had beaten it out, and now they faced the monster they had created. When the lights went on again three hundred weary humans lived and held the ship.
We held a conference in the largest room we could-find. Everyone was there, packed together in sweaty silence and staring at the man who had freed them. Theoretically it was a democratic assembly called to decide our next move. In practice Manuel Argos gave orders.
“First, of course,” he said, his soft voice somehow carrying through the whole great chamber, “we have to make repairs, both of battle damage and of the deliberately mishandled machinery. It’ll take a week, I imagine, but then we’ll have us a sweet ship. By that time, too, you’ll have shaken down into a crew. Lieutenant Reeves and Ensign Hokusai will give combat instruction. We’re not through fighting yet.”
“You mean—” A man stood up in the crowd. “You mean, sir, that we’ll have opposition on our return to Sol? I should think we could just sneak in. A planet’s, too big for blockade, you know, even if the Baldics cared to try.”
“I mean,”—said Manuel calmly, “that we’re going on to Gorzun.”
It would have meant a riot if everyone hadn’t been so tired. As it was, the murmur that ran through the assembly was ominous.
“Look, you,” said Manuel patiently, “we’ll have us a first-class fighting ship by the time we get there, which none of the enemy has. We’ll be an expected vessel, one of their own, and in no case do’ they expect a raid on their home planet. It’s a chance to give them a body blow. The Gorzuni don’t name their ships, so I propose we christen ours now—the
It was sheer oratory. His voice was like an organ. His words were those of a wrathful angel. He argued and pleaded and bullied and threatened and then blew the trumpets for us. At the end they stood up and cheered for him. Even my own heart lifted and Kathryn’s eyes were wide and shining. Oh, he was cold and harsh and overbearing, but he made us proud to be human.
In the end, it was agreed, and the Solar ship
In the days and weeks that followed, Manuel talked much of his plans. A devastating raid on Gorzun would shake the barbarian confidence and bring many of their outworld ships swarming back to defend the mother world. Probably the rival half of the Baldic League would seize its chance and fall on a suddenly weakened enemy. The
“—and then, of course, continue till all the barbarians have been conquered,” said Manuel.
“Why?” I demanded. “Interstellar imperialism can’t be made to pay. It does for the barbarians because they haven’t the technical facilities to produce at home what they can steal elsewhere. But Sol would only be taking on a burden.”
“For defense,” said Manuel. “You don’t think I’d let a defeated enemy go off to lick his wounds and prepare a new attack, do you? No, everyone but Sol must be disarmed, and the only way to enforce such a peace is for Sol to be the unquestioned ruler.” He added thoughtfully: “Oh, the empire won’t have to expand forever. Just till it’s big enough to defend itself against all comers. And a bit of economic readjustment could make it a paying proposition, too. We could collect tribute, you know.”
“An empire—?” asked Kathryn. “But the Commonwealth is democratic—”
“Was democratic!” he snapped. “Now it’s rotted away. Too bad, but you can’t revive the dead. This is an age in history such as has often occurred before when the enforced peace of Caesarism is the only solution. Maybe not a good solution but better than the devastation we’re suffering now When there’s been a long enough period of peace and unity it may be time to think of reinstating the old republicanism. But that time is many centuries in, the future, if it ever comes. Just now the socio-economic conditions aren’t right for it.”
He took a restless turn about the bridge. A million stars of space in the viewport blazed like a chill crown over his head. “It’ll be an empire in fact,” he said, “and therefore it should be an empire in name. People will fight and sacrifice and die for a gaudy symbol when the demands of reality don’t touch them. We need a hereditary aristocracy to put on a good show. It’s always effective, and the archaism is especially valuable to Sol just now. It’ll recall the good old glamorous days before space travel. It’ll be even more of a symbol now than it was in its own age, Yes, an empire, Kathryn, the Empire of Sol. Peace, ye underlings!”
“Aristocracies decay,” I argued. “Despotism is all right as long as you have an able despot but sooner or later a meathead will be born—”
“Not if the dynasty starts with strong men and women, and continues to choose good breeding stock, and raises the sons in the same hard school as the fathers. Then it can last for centuries. Especially in these days of gerontology and hundred-year active life-spans.”
I laughed at him. “One ship, and you’re planning an empire in the Galaxy!” I jeered. “And you yourself, I suppose, will be the first emperor?”
His eyes were expressionless. “Yes,” he said “Unless I find a better man, which I doubt.”
Kathryn bit her lip. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It’s—cruel.”
“This is a cruel age, my dear,” he said gently.
Gorzun rolled black and huge against a wilderness of stars. The redly illuminated hemisphere was like a sickle of blood as we swept out of secondary drive and rode our gravbeams down toward the night side.
Once only were we challenged. A harsh gabble of words came over the transonic communicator. Manuel answered smoothly in the native language, explaining that our vision set was out of order, and gave the recognition signals contained in the codebook. The warship let us pass.
Down and down and down, the darkened surface swelling beneath us, mountains reaching hungry peaks to rip the vessel’s belly out, snow and glaciers and a churning sea lit by three hurtling moons. Blackness and cold and desolation.
