The ships had come at last.

Book Three STARWORLD

One.

The battered freighter had been on fusion drive ever since it had pa.s.sed the orbit of Mars. It was pointed at Earth~r rather at the place where the Earth would be in a few hours time. All of its electronic apparatus had been either shut down or was operating at the absolute mini-mum output-behind heavy shielding. The closer they came to Earth the greater their chance of detection. And their instant destruction.

"We're taking the war to them," the political com-mander said. Before the revolution he had been a profes-sor of economics at a small university on a distant planet; the emergency had changed everything.

"You don't have to convince me," Blakeney said. "I was on the committee that ordered this attack. And I'm not happy with the discrimination target program.

"I'm not trying to convince. I'm just enjoying the thought. I had family on Teoranta..."

"They're gone," Blakeney said. "The planet's gone. You have to forget them."

"No. I want to remember them. As far as I am concerned this attack is being launched in their memory.

And in memory of all the others savaged and destroyed by Earth down through the centuries. We're fighting back at last. Taking the war to them."

"I'm still concerned about the software."

"You worry too much. One single bomb has to be dropped on Australia. How can you miss an island that big, an entire continent?"

"I'll tell you exactly how. When we release the scout ship it will have our velocity and will accelerate from that basic speed. The computer cannot make a mistake because there will be time for only a single pa.s.s. Do you realize what the closing velocity will be? Tremendous!" He took out his calculator and began punching in figures. The ship's commander raised his hand.

"Enough. I have no head for mathematics. I know only that our best people modified the scout ship for this attack. The DNA-constructed virus will eat and destroy any food crop. You yourself prepared the program to pilot the ship, to locate the target, to drop the bomb. They'll know it's war then."

"It's because I worked on the program that I am unsure. Too many variables. I'm going down for another test run.

"Do that. I'm perfectly secure, but please yourselL But watch the time. Only a few hours more. Once we penetrate their detection net it will have to be hit and run with no staying around to watch the results."

"It won't take long," Blakeney said, turning and leav-ing the bridge.

Everything has been jury-rigged, he thought as he went down the empty corridors of the ship. Even the crew. An unarmed freighter daring to attack the heart of the Earth Commonwealth. But the plan was wild enough to work. They had been building up speed ever since they had shut down the s.p.a.ce drive, well outside the orbit of Mars. The ship should hurtle past Earth and be safely away before tlie defenders could launch a counterattack. But as they pa.s.sed the planet the small scout ship they carried, secured to the outer hull, would be launched under computer control. This was what worried him. All the circuitry was breadboarded, lashed together, a com-plicated one-shot. If it failed the entire mission failed. He would have to go through all of the tests just one last time.

The tiny s.p.a.cecraft, smaller even than a normal life-boat, was secured to the outer hull by steel braces equipped with explosive bolts. A crawl tube had been fixed in place so that the scout ship shared the larger ship's atmo-sphere, making installation and servicing that much easi-er. Blakeney slipped in through the tube, then frowned at the circuits and apparatus bolted onto the walls of the tiny cabin. He turned on the screen, punched up the inspec-tion menu and began running through the tests.

On the bridge an alarm sounded hoa.r.s.ely and a series of numbers began marching across the watch operator's screen. The political commander came and looked over his shoulder.

"What does it mean?" he asked.

"We've crossed their detection web, probably the out-ermost one from Earth."

"Then they know we're here?"

"Not necessarily. We're on the plane of the ecliptic "Translation?"

"The imaginary plane, the level on which all of the planets in the solar system ride. Also all of the meteororic debris. We're too far out for them to have caught any radiation from the ship so we're just another hunk of s.p.a.cejunk, a ferrous meteor. Now. The web's alerted to us and more apparatus will be trained in our direction. Laser, radar, whatever they have. At least it should work like that. We'll find out soon. We're recording all their signals. When we get back we'll have a record of every-thing. When it's a.n.a.lyzed we'll know a good deal more about how their setup works."

When, the political commander thought, not ij~ Nothing wrong with the morale. But there was another half to this mission. The virus strike. He looked at the time readout and called through to the scout ship.

"We're entering the red zone now. Less than half an hour to separation. How are you doing?"

"Just finishing up. As soon as I clear this program I'll join you.

"Good. I want you to...

"Pulsed radar locked onto us!" the watch operator called out. "They know we're here." An auxiliary screen lit up near his elbow and he pointed to the readout. "Our reflectors have been launched. So where they had one blip on their screens before they now have a half dozen all the same, but separating at different speeds on different courses.

"They won't know which one is the real ship?"

"Not at the moment. But they know what we've done and they'll start a.n.a.lyzing course predictions, forward and back in time. They'll spot the real one. But by the time their computers have worked that out, ours will have initiated other defenses. It's a good program. Written by the best physicists and comptechs."

The political commander was less than rea.s.sured by the operator's reasoning. He did not like to think that his life depended on the non-random dispersal of magnetic charges and electrons that made up the program. Playing an intellectual game with the enemy computers. He looked out at the tiny sparks of the stars, the growing disc of the Earth, and tried to imagine the web of light beams and radio waves surging around them. He could not. He had to take it on faith that they were there and working at speeds infinitely beyond his own. A human being could not fight a battle in s.p.a.ce. The machines did that. The crew were just captive spectators. His hands were clenched tightly behind his back, though he was not aware of it.

There was a series of stiiall thudding sounds, more felt than heard, followed by an explosion that actually shook the deck beneath his feet.

"We've been hit!" he called out unthinkingly.

"Not yet." The watch operator glanced at his screens. 'All of our remaining dupes and reflectors have been launched, then the scout ship. Mission accomplished-but now we have to get out of here. Fusion drive cut... s.p.a.ce drive circuits now energized. As soon as the gravity fields allow we'll be on our way.

The political commander's eyes widened at a sudden thought; he turned sharply about.

"Where's Blakeney?" he called out. But no one on the bridge had heard him. They were counting the seconds, waiting for the missiles that must have surely been launched in their direction.

The political commander felt a sudden arrow of de-spair. He knew where Blakeney was.

He had been right, absQlutely right! And they called themselves comptechs. They couldn't write a program to win at tic-tac-toe. Orbital mechanics, fine, simple trig and geometry and calculus. Child's play. But comparison plane orientation was apparently well beyond them.

Blakeney watched with satisfaction for less than a second while the cursor on the computer roved all over the highly amplified image of Earth-then froze on the great sweep of a circular storm over Europe.

He switched on the override and put his finger on the screen, on the only bit of Australia clear of the cloud cover of a tropical storm. When the glowing blob of the cursor jumped to this spot he typed in POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION and took his finger away. At least the moronic thing could be counted upon to stay there once orientated.

None too early. The engine note changed as the course shifted, just moments later. Good. He followed the program display, then unlocked the launching switch as they hurtled toward the top of the atmosphere, ready to release manually if there were any more difficulties.

There were none. At the same instant that zero appeared on the screen the ejection mechanism thudded heavily. As the ship arced slowly away to avoid the outer traces of atmosphere, the heavy ceramic container was hurtling to-ward Earth. He knew what would be happening next; this thing at least had been well designed. Layer after layer of ablative material would burn away as it impacted on the thickening air. It would grow hot-and slow down-with the frozen virus locked safely into the cryogenic flask inside. Then a layer of ceramic would fall away to reveal an opening for the air to enter, to impact on a pressure gauge inside.

At exactly 10,769 meters, in the middle of the jet stream, the explosive charge would explode releasing the contents of the flask.

The wind would carry the virus across Australia, perhaps to New Zealand as well-a carefully designed virus that would attack and destroy any and all of the food crops grown on Earth.

Blakeney smiled at the thought as the missile hit.

It had an atomic warhead so that, to the watchers below, there was suddenly a new sunjust visible through the douds.

Two.

The TWA jet had left New York a few hours after dar~. As soon as it had reached its cruising alt.i.tude it had gone supersonic and cut a booming path straight across the United States. About the time it was crossing Kansas the western sky had grown light as the Mach 2.5 craft caught up with the setting sun.

The sun was well above the horizon again when they lost alt.i.tude over Arizona, and the pa.s.sengers who had seen one sunset in New York City now witnessed a far more colorful one over the Mojave desert.

Thurgood-Smythe squinted into the glare then opaqued his window. He was going through the notes of the emer-gency meeting that had been hurriedly called at the UN and had no eyes either for the glories of the sunset or the ma.s.sed technology of s.p.a.ceconcent opening up before him. His attache case rested on his knees with the flat VDU screen pulled out of its slot. The figures, names, dates marched steadily across the screen, stopping only when he touched the keyboard to correct any transcrip-tion errors made by the speech recorder. It had been programmed for his voice, but still subst.i.tuted one for von a good deal of the time. He made the corrections automatically, still taken aback by the momentous changes and the immense gravity of the situation. What had happened was unbelievable, impossible. But happened it had.

There was a jar as they touched down, then he was thrust forward against the safety harness as the engines reversed. The screen and keyboard disappeared at the touch of a b.u.t.ton; the dark window cleared and he looked out at the white towers of the s.p.a.ce center, now washed with glowing ochre by the sun. He was the lirst pa.s.senger off the plane.

Two uniformed guards were waiting for him; he nod-~ded at their snappy salutes. Nothing was said, nor did they ask for identification. They knew who he was, knew also that this was an unscheduled flight arrangeA for his bene-fit. Thurgood-Smythe's beaklike nose and lean, hard fea-tures had been made familiar by the news reports. His short-cropped white hair appeared severely military com-pared to the longer-haired styles currently in fashion. He looked exactly what he was; someone in charge.

Auguste Blanc was standing at the ceiling-high window, his back turned, when Thurgood-Smythe came in. As Director of s.p.a.ceconcent his office was naturally on the top floor of the tallest administration building. The view was impressive; the sunset incomparable. The mountains on the horizon were purple-black, outlined against the red of the sky. All of the buildings and the towering s.p.a.ceships were washed by the same fiery color. The color of blood; prophetic perhaps. Nonsense! A cough cut through Auguste Blanc's thoughts and he turned to face Thurgood-Smythe.

'A good flight, I sincerely hope," he said, extending his hand. A thin, delicate hand, as finally drawn as his features. He had a t.i.tle, a very good French one, but he rarely used it. The people he needed to impress, such as Thu rgood-Smythe, took no heed of such things. Thurgood-Smythe nodded sharply, impatient for the formalities to be out of the way.

"But tiring nevertheless. A restorative, then? Some-thing to drink, to relax?"

"No thank you, Auguste. No, wait, a Perrier. If you please."

"The dry air of the airship. Not humidified as we of course do in the s.p.a.cers. Here you are." He pa.s.sed over the tall gla.s.s, then poured an Armagnac for himself. Without turning about, as though ashamed of what he was saying, he spoke into the bottles of the c.o.c.ktail cabinet. "Is it bad? As bad as I have heard?"

"I don't know what you have heard." Thurgood-Smythe took a long drink from his gla.s.s. "But I can tell you this, in all secrecy...

"This room is secure."

..... it is far worse than any of us thought. A debacle." He dropped into an armchair and stared sightlessly into his gla.s.s. "We've lost. Everywhere. Not a single planet remains within our control-"

"That cannot be!" The sophistication was gone and there was an edge of animal fear in Auguste Blanc's voice. "Our deeps.p.a.ce bases, how could they be taken?"

"I'm not talking about those. They're unimportant. All of them on low-gravity, airless moons. They aren't self-sufficient, they must be supplied regularly. More of a handicap than an a.s.set. They can't be attacked-but they can be starved out. We're evacuating them all."

"You cannot! They are our foothold, the cutting edge of the blade for conquest..

"They are our Achilles' heel, if you wish to continue this stupid simile." There was no trace of politeness, no touch of warmth in Thurgood-Smythe's voice now. "We need the transport and we need the men.

Here is an order. See that it goes out on the Foscolo net at once." He took a single sheet of paper from his case and pa.s.sed it over to the trembling director. "The debate is done. Two days of it. This is the combined decision."

Auguste Blanc's hands were shaking in the most cra-ven manner so that he had difficulty reading the paper he grasped. But the director was needed. He was good at his job. For this reason, and none other, Thurgood-Smythe spoke quietly, considerately.

"These decisions are sometimes harder to make than to implement. I'm sorry, Auguste. They left us no choice. The planets are theirs. All of them. They planned well. Our people captured or dead. We have most of our s.p.a.ce fleet intact, there was no way they could get at them, though a few were sabotaged, a few deserted. We're pull-ing back. A strategic withdrawal. A regrouping."

"Retreat." Spoken bitterly. "Then we have lost already."

"No. Not in the slightest. We have the s.p.a.cers, and among them are the only ships designed for military use. The enemy have freighters, tugs, a handful of deserters. Many of their worlds already face starvation.

While they are thinking about survival we shall reinforce our de-fenses. When they try to attack us they will certainly be defeated. Then, one by one, we will reoccupy. You and I will probably not see the end, not in our time, but this rebellion will eventually be stifled and crushed. That is what will be done."

"What must I do?" Auguste Blanc asked, still insecure.

"Send this command. It is a security order to all commanders to change codes. I am sure that the old one is compromised by now."

Auguste Blanc looked at the incomprehensible series of letters and numbers, then nodded. Encoding and decoding were a computer function and he neither knew nor cared how they operated. He slid the sheet into the reader slot in his desk top and tapped a series of com-mands on the keyboard. A few seconds after he had done this the response sounded from the computer speakers.

"Command issued to all receivers listed. Response received from all receivers listed. Communication code has been changed."

Thurgood-Smythe nodded when he heard this and put another sheet of paper onto Auguste Blanc's desk.

"You will notice that the orders are issued in very general terms. The fleet to be withdrawn to Earth orbit as soon as possible, all advanced bases to be deactivated, the Lunar bases to be reinforced. As soon as enough trans-ports are available they will be used to ferry troops to the Earth-orbiting colonies. They will be occupied in force. I have positive information that the colonies' sympathies are with the rebels, not with their home world. And the same thing will be done with orbital satellite stations. Do you have any questions?"

"Will there be a shortage of food? I heard that we are going to go hungry. I had my wife send in a large order for food but it was not filled. What does it mean?"

The man is a coward-and a fool, Thurgood-Smythe thought to himself. Worried about his failure to be a h.o.a.rder! I suppose that is a new word to him. And to most people. They'll find out what it means when we shoot a few of them. For h.o.a.rding, and spreading defeat-ist rumors as well.

"I'll tell you the truth," ThurgoodSmythe said aloud, "but I'm going to give you a warning first. We are in a war, and morale is very important in wartime. So people who spread false rumors, who attempt to h.o.a.rd food depriving others of their share-these people are aiding the enemy and they will be punished.

Punishment will be imprisonment and execution. Am I expressing myself clearly enough for you?"

"Yes; I didn't really understand. I really am sorry, had no idea..."

The man was trembling again; Thurgood-Smythe tried not to let his distaste show in his expression.

"Very good. There will be no starvation on Earth-but there will be shortages and rationing. We have always imported a cer-tain amount of prole food, but I don't think either of us will worry if their rations are short. More important is the fact that a blight has destroyed all of the Australian food crops for this growing season....

"Blight? All their crops... I don't understand."

"Mutated virus. Spread by bombing from s.p.a.ce. Self-eliminating after a few months but it will mean completely replanting all of the food crops with imported seed."

"You must destroy them all! Criminal rebels-they are trying to starve us to death!"

"Not really. They were just delivering a warning. It appears that in enthusiasm for revenge some of our s.p.a.ce commanders took individual actions. At least two rebel planets have been effectively destroyed.

The rebel reaction was to send this ship to bomb Australia. It could just as easily have decimated the entire world's food crops. It was a message. We of course took out the attacking ship. But we have sent a return message agreeing to their terms. Planetary bombings only of military targets."

"We must wipe them out, every single one of them," Auguste Blanc said, hoa.r.s.ely.

"We will. Our plan is a simple one. Withdraw all our forces to Earth orbit to secure against any invasion or occupation of the s.p.a.ce colonies and satellites. Then selec-tive reconquest of the planets, one by one.