Chapter VIII

At three minutes and fourteen seconds before midnight a small, fast spacecraft with the insigne of the striding warrior on her bows dropped down out of the sky and landed in the brush-grown meadow at the edge of the Kirk woods. There was nothing anywhere in sight around it but the dark quiet mass of the trees, the patches of bramble and pale white blossoms of the Queen Anne's Lace. Across the meadow was the Kirk house, with a single lamp burning in it.

A hatch opened and a party of men came out, climbing down a collapsible ladder. There were fifteen of them, armed. They stood still, looking around and listening. Then they began to move toward the house, scrambling and stumbling among the briars and the tufts of bunch-grass, fanned out like skirmishers.

Kirk, lying behind a hazel bush in the fringe of the woods, waved one hand slowly in an outward arc, and there were several small rustlings in the brush to his left. He waited, feeling tense and prickly all over, sweating heavily, though the night was cooler now. He counted, slowly and carefully, moving his lips. Held tight in the crook of his arm was the heavy sono-beam device, snatched up from the house as they came past it. Vinson was beside him, and among the trees nearby were eight more men, waiting for Kirk's signal. Kirk could not see Vinson's face in the dark, but he could hear his breathing, quick and excited. He leaned his head close to the Earthman's, and whispered,

"Remember, keep down out of the way until you see me go in."

He raised up cautiously.

"All right. Now."

He began to creep rapidly toward the slash of light from the scout-ship's open hatch. The others came behind him. He was not used to this sort of stalking, and he made more noise than the other nine put together. He hoped no one would hear it.

From the direction of the house there came a sudden crackling of shocker-beams. Kirk flung himself forward, over the last few feet. Secrecy was a lost hope now, and all that mattered was getting the sono-beam projector into the open hatchway. The bloody thing weighed a ton when you carried it, but its heft was only relative. Against armor-plate and the strong double-hull of a space-ship it would be no more effective than a bullroarer.

There was a guard of two in the hatchway. They sprang to the lip of the opening, staring toward the house, their shockers lifted. Kirk yelled, "Get 'em!" Vinson and a man on the other side of him fired almost together. The guards came tumbling forward onto the ground. Kirk dodged between them and set the sono-projector on the edge of the hatch floor. He had to reach high to do it. The others, following his orders, were hugging the curve of the hull on either side of the ladder. Kirk slammed the stud full charge and wide open.

"They're coming back this way!" yelled Vinson. He was looking toward the house. Kirk craned his neck.

The shocker-flashes flickered like heat-lightning in the night. They moved back toward the ship--probably the fifteen men, or what was left of them, were retreating from the Orville men whom Kirk had stationed in the house and yard.

He said desperately, "Stop them, damn it, can't you stop them?" The sono-beam projector was sliding out of his hands, walking itself with its own vibration across the smooth-worn metal. He had to turn to hold it.

* * * * *

Inside the ship there was bedlam going on, a sound of things breaking and men's voices raised in inarticulate cries. A tall gray-haired man with a captain's stars on his shoulder-tabs came at a staggering run into the passage and dropped, and lay still. His hands quivered with the jarring of the floor.

Kirk shut off the projector and threw it away. He went up the ladder, and at the top he paused a second to look at what was happening in the meadow. The Orville men who had gone in behind the invaders had risen out of the brush. Their shockers flared in a line of ragged light amid the brambles and the white flowers. Then there was darkness and a sudden peace.

"Come on!" Kirk shouted, his voice carrying far across the meadow. Then he ran down the passage, with Vinson and the other eight pounding at his heels. The gray-haired captain did not move as they went by.

And it was almost easy. Seven, eight, nine, of the crew lay sprawled in the main passage or in doorways opening from it, unconscious. The communications man was still making vague pawing motions at his dials, but the motions were only reflex and the equipment was jarred to fragments of splintered glass and plastic. In the small, compact bridge, best protected by intervening bulkheads, the two junior officers and three crewmen were still conscious but too dazed to offer resistance.

"Well," said Vinson, breathing hard, his eyes shining. "We did all right."

"We did fine," said Kirk, grinning. The other eight grinned, too, nodding their heads at each other and at him. They had fought together and won together, and now they were all comrades, men of Orville, men of Earth. It was a good feeling, Kirk discovered. A very good feeling.

Some of the men came in from the meadow. The fifteen from the scout were all taken. The Orville men had suffered some casualties in the way of burns and shock, but no fatalities.

"Good," said Kirk. He looked at the Orionids. "Where can we put 'em for safekeeping?"

Vinson said, "The local jail is pretty small, but I guess we could pack them in."

"It won't be for long," said Kirk. "The high brass will take them off your hands in a hurry."

"We'll see to it," said Vinson. "I guess you'll want to call New York. And don't worry about the women, I'll stop by the house and let them know we're okay."

"Thanks," said Kirk. He went out across the meadow to the house, and put in his call to Charteris.

After that things happened with desperate speed. A fleet of air-cars descended on Orville and the Kirk house. Charteris was with them. He inspected the Orion scout, conferred briefly with his aides, and then spoke to Kirk.

"I suppose I should apologize, Commander," he said, rather stiffly, "but I'm not going to. In our position we have no choice but to suspect any force too strong for us to deal with easily."

"I don't care about anything," said Kirk, "except to get my squadron off the ground before Orion strikes."

Charteris nodded. "Your squadron is being fitted for action now. I suggest we return to New York at once to confer with Admiral Laney and decide strategy."

* * * * *

The next few hours were hectic ones. Orders, preparations, requisitions, arguments. And Kirk found himself up against a totally unexpected stumbling-block--the stiff-necked, stubborn pride of Earth.

"We recognize perfectly," Admiral Laney said frostily, "our position as a fifth-rate naval power, but we have never yet run from battle and we don't intend to start doing it now."

"But against Orion Sector's two crack squadrons--"

"We're grateful for the presence of the Fifth Lyra," said Laney, "but our own ships will bear the brunt of the attack."

"Sir," said Kirk, and he meant it, "I would be proud to fight under you. But facts are facts. I think you understand that the Fifth Lyra has a certain pride too. But we're not going to bear the brunt of any attack where we know in advance we're outnumbered two to one. In short, if you meet Solleremos head on, you meet him alone."

"Now here," he went on, turning to the huge depth-chart of the Solar System, "was my thought. We know from the vera-ray examination of the captain of that Orion scout, that the scout's take-off was literally to be the signal for the attack. They didn't dare risk a radio message, even in code, that might be intercepted. So the course of take-off, on the exact coordinates of the hidden fleet, was to serve as a message. They could spot this by ultra-wave scanner, using relays at previously-arranged points in deep space. So, we have the coordinates--"

He wrote them down on the chart.

"Carried to point of convergence, that would put the Orion fleet about there--far off this chart, of course, but roughly south-east of the star Saiph. They will presumably attack along this line--" He drew one, bold and red, a dagger pointed at Earth's heart.

"Roughly nadir-point zero six, from our viewpoint," said Laney. "Well?"

"Here," said Kirk, "you seem to have a natural sort of chevaux-de-frise, to borrow an ancient term."

He pointed to a blurred and speckled area lying between Mars and Jupiter.

"The Asteroid Belt," said Laney. "Yes. We know our way around in it, but anyone else would find it hard going." His eyes brightened. "Plenty of places for ambush. Yes, I see what you're driving at. If we could entangle their superior forces in the drift--"

"Exactly. Bait them in there, harry them all you can. Now, then. They'll be expecting to catch the Fifth Lyra on the ground. As far as they know, Tauncer succeeded and all is well. So perhaps they won't be too watchful. We'll be up here hiding above the Sun, screened by it from their radar. When you have them hooked--"

He made a downward slashing motion with his hand.

"That suits me," said Laney. He shook hands with Kirk solemnly. Then he turned to Charteris and the others who were gathered with anxious face? in the conference room. "I think we may as well get started."

Charteris sighed. He picked up the intercom and spoke into it briefly.

* * * * *

Northward, the fields around Orville were brightening with a new day. In the meadow behind the Kirk house the briars and the Queen Anne's Lace were beaten down by the passage of men and trucks. They were all gone now except for one truck with massive electronic equipment, pulled back to a safe distance from the Orion scout. The necessary changes had been made in the ship's control system. Now the crew of the truck waited for a signal from the house.

It came.

The truck crew went to work, activating the remote-control relays, setting up a locked-in series of coordinates. Then the firing key was pressed.

With every semblance of life, the Orion scout took off on its destined course--a Judas goat, empty and silent, with no living thing inside its hull.

Standing on the steps of the Vinson's house, Lyllin watched it rise and vanish in the blue air. She had had one short call from Kirk. _Wait there. I'll come back._ Now the small dying thunder of the scout-ship's flight seemed like the receding footsteps of everything she had ever loved, passing over the distant hills.

She turned slowly and went back into the house.