hurrahing outside sounded like mockery.
After long seconds, the High Commander turned in from the balcony and raised his voice: “Men, we who have heard the finish of the prophecy are few—but still we are many, to keep a secret. So I don’t ask for secrecy. But spread the word, too, that I have no faith in prophecies that are not of God. The Carmpan have never claimed to be infallible.”
The gloomy answer was unspoken, but almost telepathically loud among the group. Nine times out of ten, the Carmpan are right. There will be a victory, then death and failure.
But did the dark ending apply only to Johann Karlsen, or to the whole cause of the living? The men in the shuttle looked at one another, wondering and murmuring.
The shuttles found space to land, at the edge of Ulan Bator. Disembarking, the men found no chance for gloom, with a joyous crowd growing thicker by the moment around the ships. A lovely Earth girl came, wreathed in garlands, to throw a flowery loop around Mitchell Spain, and to kiss him. He was an ugly man, quite unused to such willing attentions.
Still, he noticed when the High Commander’s eye fell on him.
“You, Martian, come with me to the General Staff meeting. I want to show a representative group in there so they’ll know I’m not just my brother’s agent. I need one or two who were born in Sol’s light.”
“Yes, sir.” Was there no other reason why Karlsen had singled him out? They stood together in the crowd, two short men looking levelly at each other. One ugly and flower-bedecked, his arm still around a girl who stared with sudden awed recognition at the other man, who was magnetic in a way beyond handsomeness or ugliness. The ruler of a planet, perhaps to be the savior of all life.
“I like the way you keep people from standing on your toes in a crowd,” said Karlsen to Mitchell Spain. “Without raising your voice or uttering threats. What’s your name and rank?”
Military organization tended to be vague, in this war where everything that lived was on the same side. “Mitchell Spain, sir. No rank assigned, yet. I’ve been training with the marines. I was on Austeel when you offered a good battle bounty, so here I am.”
“Not to defend Mars?”
“I suppose, that too. But I might as well get paid for it.”
Karlsen’s high-ranking aides were wrangling and shouting now, about groundcar transportation to the staff meeting. This seemed to leave Karlsen with time to talk. He thought, and recognition flickered on his face.
“Mitchell Spain? The poet?”
“I—I’ve had a couple of things published. Nothing much . . . ”
“Have you combat experience?”
“Yes, I was aboard one berserker, before it was pacified. That was out—”
“Later, we’ll talk. Probably have some marine command for you. Experienced men are scarce. Hemphill, where are those groundcars?”
The cold-eyed Earthman turned to answer. Of course his face had been familiar; this was Hemphill, fanatic hero of a dozen berserker fights. Mitch was faintly awed, in spite of himself.
At last the groundcars came. The ride was into Ulan Bator. The military center would be under the metropolis, taking full advantage of the defensive force fields that could be extended up into space to protect the area of the city.
Riding down the long elevator zigzag to the buried War Room, Mitch found himself again next to Karlsen.
“Congratulations on your coming marriage, sir.” Mitch didn’t know if he liked Karlsen or not; but already he felt curiously certain of him, as if he had known the man for years. Karlsen would know he was not trying to curry favor.
The High Commander nodded. “Thank you.” He hesitated for a moment, then produced a small photo. In an illusion of three dimensions it showed the head of a young woman, golden hair done in the style favored by the new aristocracy of Venus.
There was no need for any polite stretching of truth. “She’s very beautiful.”
“Yes.” Karlsen looked long at the picture, as if reluctant to put it away. “There are those who say this will be only a political alliance. God knows we need one. But believe me, Poet, she means far more than that to me.”
Karlsen blinked suddenly and, as if amused at himself, gave Mitch a why-am-I-telling-you-all-this look. The elevator floor pressed up under the passengers’ feet, and the doors sighed open. They had reached the catacomb of the General Staff.
Many of the staff, though not an absolute majority, were Venerian in these days. From their greeting it was plain that the Venerian members were coldly hostile to Nogara’s brother.
Humanity was, as always, a tangle of cliques and alliances. The brains of the Solarian Parliament and the Executive had been taxed to find a High Commander. If some objected to Johann Karlsen, no one who knew him had any honest doubt of his ability. He brought with him to battle many trained men, and unlike some mightier leaders, he had been willing to take responsibility for the defense of Sol.
In the frigid atmosphere in which the staff meeting opened, there was nothing to do but get quickly to business. The enemy, the berserker machines, had abandoned their old tactics of single, unpredictable raids—for slowly over the last decades the defenses of life had been strengthened.
There were now thought to be about two hundred berserkers; to meet humanity’s new defenses they had recently formed themselves into a fleet, with concentrated power capable of overwhelming one at a time all centers of human resistance. Two strongly defended planets had already been destroyed. A massed human fleet was needed, first to defend Sol, and then to meet and break the power of the unliving.
“So far, then, we are agreed,” said Karlsen, straightening up from the plotting table and looking around at the General Staff. “We have not as many ships or as many trained men as we would like. Perhaps no government away from Sol has contributed all it could.”
Kemal, the Venerian admiral, glanced around at his planetmen, but declined the chance to comment on the weak contribution of Karlsen’s own half-brother, Nogara. There was no living being upon whom Earth, Mars, and Venus could really agree, as the leader for this war. Kemal seemed to be willing to try and live with Nogara’s brother.
Karlsen went on: “We have available for combat two hundred and forty-three ships, specially constructed or modified to suit the new tactics I propose to use. We are all grateful for the magnificent Venerian contribution of a hundred ships. Six of them, as you probably all know, mount the new long-range C-plus cannon.”
The praise produced no visible thaw among the Venerians. Karlsen went on: “We seem to have a numerical advantage of about forty ships. I needn’t tell you how the enemy outgun and outpower us, unit for unit.” He paused. “The ram-and-board tactics should give us just the element of surprise we need.”
Perhaps the High Commander was choosing his words carefully, not wanting to say that some element of surprise offered the only logical hope of success. After the decades-long dawning of hope, it would be too much to say that. Too much for even these tough-minded men who knew how a berserker machine weighed in the scales of war against any ordinary warship.
“One big problem is trained men,” Karlsen continued, “to lead the boarding parties. I’ve done the best I can, recruiting. Of those ready and in training as boarding marines now, the bulk are Esteelers.”
Admiral Kemal seemed to guess what was coming; he started to push back his chair and rise, then waited, evidently wanting to make certain.
Karlsen went on in the same level tone. “These trained marines will be formed into companies, and one company assigned to each warship. Then—”
“One moment, High Commander Karlsen.” Kemal had risen.
“Yes?”
“Do I understand that you mean to station companies of Esteelers aboard Venerian ships?”
“In many cases my plan will mean that, yes. You protest?”
“I do.” The Venerian looked around at his planet-men. “We all do.”
“Nevertheless it is so ordered.”
Kemal looked briefly around at his fellows once more, then sat down, blankfaced. The stenocameras in the room’s corners emitted their low sibilance, reminding all that the proceedings were being recorded.
A vertical crease appeared briefly in the High Commander’s forehead, and he looked for long thoughtful
