He had erred only—and Colmain gave him full credit for all but that single error—in underestimating the time it would take for Colmain to gather his strength to retaliate. And even that error was forgive-able. There was no other force on the known worlds that could have been gotten battle-ready in under three times the time.
“We’ll go in,” said Colmain. “All of us—and fight it out on the moon.” He looked around his officers. “Any comment?”
“Sir,” said his Blue Patrol chief, “maybe we could wait them out up here?”
“Don’t you think it,” said Colmain, good-humoredly. “Tney would not come and dig in, in our own system, without being fully supplied for long enough to establish an outpost we can’t take back.” He shook his head. “The time to operate is now, gentlemen, before the infection has a chance to get its hold AH ships down— even the ones without assault troops. We’ll fight them as if they were ground emplacements.”
His staff saluted and went off to execute his orders.
The Exotic fleet descended on the moon of Zombri like locusts upon an orchard. Colmain, pacing the floor of the control room in the flagship—which had gone in with the rest—grinned as the reports began to flood in of strong points quickly cleaned of the Friendly troops that had occupied them—or dug in ships quickly surrendering and beginning to dig themselves out of the deep shafts their mining equipment had provided for them. The invading troops were collapsing like cardboard soldiers; and Colmain’s opinion of their commander—which had risen sharply with the first news of the attack—began to slip decidedly. It was one thing to gamble boldly; it was quite another to gamble foolishly. It appeared from the morale and quality of the Friendly troops that there had, after all, been little chance of the surprise attack succeeding. This Graeme should have devoted a little more time to training his men and less to dreaming up dramatic actions. It was, Colmain thought, very much what you might expect of a young commander in supreme authority for the first time in his life.
He was enjoying the roseate glow of anticipated victory when it was suddenly all rudely shattered. There was a sudden ping from the deep-space communicator and suddenly two officers at the board spoke at once.
“Sir, unidentified call from—”
“Sir, ships above us—”
Colmain, who had been watching the Zombri surface through his Control Eye, jabbed suddenly at his buttons and the seeker circuit on it swung him dizzily upward and toward the stars, coming to rest abruptly, on full magnification, on a ship of the first class which unmistakably bore the mark of Friendly design and manufacture. Incredulously, he widened his scope, and in one swift survey, picked out more than twenty such ships in orbit around Zombri, within the limited range of his ground-restricted Eye, alone.
“Who is it?” he shouted, turning on the officer who had reported a call.
“Sir—” the officer’s voice was hesitantly incredulous, “he says he’s the Commander of the Friendlies.”
“What?” Colmain’s fist came down on a stud beside the controls of the Eye. A wall screen lit up and a lean young Dorsai with odd, indefinite-colored eyes looked out at him.
“Graeme!” roared Colmain. “What kind of an imitation fleet are you trying to bluff me with?”
“Look again, commander,” answered the young man. “The imitation are digging their way out down there on the surface by you. They’re my sub-class ships. Why’d you think they would be taken so eas- ily? These are my ships of the first class—one hundred and eighty-three of them.”
Colmain jammed down the button and blanked the screen. He turned on his officers at the control panel.
“Report!”
But the officers had already been busy. Confirmations were flooding in. The first of the attacking ships had been dug out and proved to be sub-class ships with sheathing around their phase-shift grids, little weapons, and less armor. Colmain swung back to the screen again, activated it, and found Donal in the same position, waiting for him.
“We’ll be up to see you in ten minutes,” he promised, between his teeth.
“You’ve got more sense than that, commander,” replied Donal, from the screen. “Your ships aren’t even dug in. They’re sitting ducks as they are; and in no kind of formation to cover each other as they try to jump off. We can annihilate you if you try to climb up here, and lying as you are we can pound you to pieces on the ground. You’re not equipped from the standpoint of supplies to dig in there; and I’m well enough informed about your total strength to know you’ve got no force left at large that’s strong enough to do us any damage.” He paused. “I suggest you come up here yourself in a single ship and discuss terms of surrender.”
Colmain stood, glaring at the screen. But there was, in fact, no alternative to surrender. He would not have been a commander of the caliber he was, if he had not recognized the fact. He nodded, finally, grudgingly.
“Coming up,” he said; and blanked the screen. Shoulders a little humped, he went off to take the little courier boat that was attached to the flagship for his own personal use.
“By heaven,” were the words with which he greeted Donal, when he at last came face to face with him aboard the Friendly flagship, “you’ve ruined me. I’ll be lucky to get the command of five C-class and a tender, on Dunnin’s World, after this.”
It was not far from the truth.
Donal returned to Harmony two days later, and was cheered in triumph even by the sourest of that world’s fanatics, as he rode through the streets to Government Center. A different sort of reception awaited him there, however, when he arrived and went alone to report to Eldest Bright.
The head of the United Council of Churches for the worlds of Harmony and Association looked up grimly as Dona! came in, still wearing the coverall of his battle dress under a barrel-cut jacket he had thrown on hastily for the ride from the spaceport. The platform on which he had ridden had been open for the admiration of the crowds along the way; and Harmony was in the chill fall of its short year.
“Evening, gentlemen,” said Donal, taking in not only Bright in the greeting, but two other members of the Council who sat alongside him at his desk. These two did not answer. Donal had hardly expected them to. Bright was in charge here. Bright nodded at three armed soldiers of the native elite guard that had been holding post by the door and they went out, closing the door behind them.
“So you’ve come back,” said Bright.
Donal smiled.
“Did you expect me to go some place else?” he asked.
“This is no time for humor!” Bright’s large hand came down with a crack on the top of the desk. “What kind of an explanation have you got for us, for this outrageous conduct of yours?”
“If you don’t mind, Eldest!” Donal’s voice rang against the gray walls of the room, with a slight cutting edge the three had never heard before and hardly expected on this occasion. “I believe in politeness and good manners for myself; and see no reason why others shouldn’t reciprocate in kind. What’re you talking about9”
Bright rose. Standing wide-legged and shoulder-bent above the smooth, almost reflective surface of the gray desk, the resemblance to the back-alley scrapper for the moment outweighed the Torquemada in his appearance.
“You come back to us,” he said, slowly and harshly, “and pretend not to know how you betrayed us?”
“Betrayed you?” Donal considered him with a quietness that was almost ominous. “How—betrayed you?”
“We sent you out to do a job.”
“I believe I did it,” said Donal dryly. “You wanted a watchtower over the Godless. You wanted a permanent installation on Zombri to spot any buildup on the part of the Exotics to attack you. You remember I asked you to set out in plain terms what you were after, a few days back. You were quite explicit about that being just what you wanted. Well—you’ve got it!”
“You limb of Satan!” blared Bright, suddenly losing control. “Do you pretend to believe that you thought that was all we wanted? Did you mink the anointed of the Lord would hesitate on the threshold of the Godless?” He turned and stalked suddenly around the desk to stand face to face with Donal. “You had them in your power and you asked them only for an unarmed observation station on a barren moon. You had them by the throat and you slew none of them when you should have wiped them from the face of the stars, to the last ship—to the last man!”
He paused and Donal could hear his teeth gritting in the sudden silence.