"Throw out all the stuff loaded so far," he commanded. "Some of it may be b.o.o.by-trapped like that last one. We won't take a chance. Heave it all out again."

"_Yes, sir._"

Bors gave other orders. The harsh-voiced broadcast stopped. Bors's own voice went out on the air, steely-hard.

"Captain Bors, pirate ship _Isis_ speaking," he said coldly. "We demanded supplies. They were sent us--government-supplied. We have found one b.o.o.by-trap included. In retaliation for this attempted a.s.sa.s.sination, we are going to lob chemical-explosive missiles into the princ.i.p.al government buildings of this city. We give three minutes'

leeway for clerks and other persons to get clear of those buildings. The three minutes start now!"

The sun shone tranquilly on the planet Tralee. White clouds floated with infinite leisureliness across the blue sky. There was no motion of any sort within the wide, open area of the landing-grid. Over a large part of this world's surface all activity had stopped while men listened to a broadcast.

"Fifteen seconds gone," said Bors icily.

He wrote out an order and pa.s.sed it for execution.

"Thirty seconds gone."

From twenty giant buildings in the city, a black tide of running figures began to pour. When they reached the street, they went on running. They wanted to get as far as possible from the buildings Bors had said would be destroyed.

"Forty-five seconds gone," said Bors implacably.

A voice spoke from the grid-control building, where men were now placing explosives with precisely calculated effects. The voice came on microwaves to the ship.

"_Sir_," said the voice, "_landing-grid reporting. s.p.a.ce-yacht_ Sylva _reports breakout from overdrive and asks coordinates for landing.

Purpose of visit, pleasure-travel._"

Bors swore, then smiled to himself. Gwenlyn had threatened to do something drastic!

"Say landing's forbidden," he commanded an instant later. "Advise immediate departure."

He pressed a b.u.t.ton and said evenly:

"One minute gone! In two minutes more we send our bombs and take off."

Streets outside the government buildings were filled from building-wall to building-wall by clerks drafted to staff the incredible, arbitrary government set up on its tributary worlds by Mekin. Bors scribbled a list of buildings to be ranged on. The map from the s.p.a.ceport office would help. He marked the Ministry of Police, which would contain the records essential to the operation of the planet-wide police system.

Anything that happened to those records would be so much good fortune for Tralee, and so much bad for the master race and its quislings. He marked the Ministry of the Interior, which would house the machinery for requisitions of tribute to Mekin. The Ministry of Public Order would be the headquarters of the secret and the political police. It ran the forced-labor camps. It filed all anonymous accusations. It kept records on all persons suspected of the crime of patriotism. If anything happened to those records, it would be all to the good.

"Two minutes gone," said Bors.

The voice from the s.p.a.ceport control building said briskly:

"_Demolition charges placed, sir. Ready to evacuate and fire. Sir, the s.p.a.ce-yacht_ Sylva _sends a message to the captain of the pirate ship.

It says they'll wait._"

Bors said, "d.a.m.n! All right." Then into the broadcast-microphone, "Two-and-a-half minutes. There will be no further count-down. In thirty seconds we fire missiles into government buildings, in retaliation for an attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate us with time-bombs. The next sound you hear will be our missiles arriving." He cut back to the grid-control building. "Fire all charges and report to the ship."

Almost instantly curt, crisp reports sounded nearby. The landing-party came smartly back to the airlock, while explosions continued in the building they'd left.

"Launcher-tubes train on targets," Bors commanded. He pressed another b.u.t.ton. "Rocket-room, make ready for lift." Back to the launcher-tube communicator. "Fire missiles one, two, three, four, five, six."

There were boomings, which rose to bellowings as devastation tore away from the _Isis's_ launching-tubes. Bors said irritably to the rocket-room:

"Take her up!"

And then the ship lifted on her rockets--they were not solely for emergency use, as on cargo-ships--and rushed toward the sky. As the ship mounted on its column of writhing smoke, other smoky columns spouted up.

Six of them. But they were limited. They went up two thousand feet and then tended to mushroom. Bits of debris went higher and spread more widely, and for a time there were fragments of buildings and their contents flying wildly about.

But the ship went straight upward. The city and the open country beyond it shrank swiftly. The spouted smokes of explosions in the city were left behind. Mountains appeared at one horizon and a sea at another.

Then the vast expanse of the planet suddenly acquired a curved edge, and the ship again went up and up--while the sky turned dark and some stars appeared in futile compet.i.tion with the sun--and the surface of Tralee became visibly the near side of an enormous globe.

Then the planet became plainly what it was, a great ball floating in s.p.a.ce, one-half of it brilliant in the sunshine and one part of it bathed in night.

Bors put on the solar-system drive and changed course. A voice came through:

"_Calling pirate ship ... calling pirate ship.... s.p.a.ce yacht_ Sylva _calling pirate ship...._"

Bors growled into a microphone, "What the devil are you doing in this place. What's happened?"

Gwenlyn's voice, bland and amused. "_Nothing happened. But we've got some news for you. Make rendezvous at the fourth planet?_"

Bors swore again. That was where he was to meet the cargo-ship captured and sent aloft, supposedly destroyed on Tralee. But he drove on out, around and away from Tralee.

He was reasonably satisfied with his landing on Tralee. With some luck, the news of the landing of a lone survivor of the Kandarian fleet might reach Mekin before it was aware of what had happened to its occupation force. With a little more luck, the attention of Mekin would be devoted more to a ship which dared to turn pirate than to Kandar itself. With unlimited favorable fortune, Mekin might actually send ships to hunt the _Isis_ instead of asking questions on Kandar.

But Bors made a mental note. The more time that pa.s.sed before Mekin knew what had happened, the better. So a ship or two or three might be detached from the fleet and sent back to hang off Kandar. If a single ship came inquiringly, it might be sniped and the news of Kandar suppressed for a while longer. And it was conceivable that Mekin might come to worry more about other matters than the success or failure of a routine expansion of its empire.

The fourth planet loomed up on schedule. Bors was irritated, as often before, by the relatively slow solar-system drive. Overdrive was sometimes not fast enough--but solar-system drive was infuriatingly slow. Yet one couldn't use overdrive in a solar system. Approaching a planet on overdrive would be like trying to garage a ground-car at sixty miles an hour. One couldn't stop where one wanted to. He wondered vaguely if Logan, the math Talent, could handle such a problem, and dismissed the idea. One could break a circuit with an accuracy of microseconds, but that wouldn't be close enough for overdrive. It wouldn't be practical.

Then the ice-sheet of Tralee's nearest neighbor planet spread out in the vision-port's range of view. Bors called for the cargo-ship. It answered almost immediately. It was standard practice, of course, that the site of a meeting planned at a given planet would be wherever its poles pointed nearest to galactic north. The cargo-ship had just arrived. It barely responded before the _Sylva_ began to call again.

The three ships, then, joined their orbits and went swinging about the glacier-world beneath them while they conferred.

The report from the cargo-ship was unexpectedly satisfactory. It had been almost completely loaded, and its cargo was largely foodstuffs intended for Mekin. Kandar's fleet-in-hiding was already subsisting on emergency rations. This cargo of a.s.sorted frozen foods would be welcome.

Bors gave orders for it to head for Glamis immediately, in overdrive.

Communication had been three-way, and Gwenlyn said quickly;

"_Just a moment! Did you pick up any news-reports on Tralee?_"

"Hm. Yes. I'd better send them--"

"_You'd better?_" echoed Gwenlyn, scolding. "_My father stayed with the fleet to try to explain what Talents, Incorporated can do! He kept most of the Talents with him, for demonstrations! The Department for Predicting Dirty Tricks is there! Don't you remember what that Department works on? Of course you've got to send those news-reports!_"

Bors ordered a s.p.a.ce-boat to come from the cargo-ship for the reports.

"_Would you like to come to dinner on the yacht?_" asked Gwenlyn.

"_You're all living on emergency rations. n.o.body asked us to divide our supplies with the fleet. I can give you a nice meal._"

"Better not," said Bors curtly, and mumbled thanks.