has already been pointed out, the matter in the inter-galactic void is so tenuous that
spaceships are capable of enormously greater velocities than any attainable in the far
denser medium filling interstellar space.
No: what gave the Boskonians of Lyrane VIII their greatly lengthened reprieve
was simply the direction of the line established by the communicator-beam punctures.
Reasoning from analogy, the Lensmen had supposed that it would lead them into a
star-cluster, fairly well away from the main body of the Second Galaxy, in either the
zenith or the nadir direction. Instead of that, however, when the Patrol surveyors got
close enough so that their possible error was very small, it became clear that their
objective lay inside the galaxy itself.
“I don’t like this line a bit, chief,” Kinnison told the admiral then. “It’d smell like
Limburger to have a fleet of this size and power nosing into their home territory, along
what must be one of the hottest lines of communication they’ve got.”
“Check,” Port Admiral Haynes agreed. “QX so far, but it would begin to stink
pretty quick now. We’ve got to assume that they know about spotting screens, whether
they really do or not. If they do, they’ll have this line trapped from stem to gudgeon, and
the minute they detect us they’ll cut this line out entirely. Then where’ll you be?”
“Right back where I started from—that’s what I’m yowling about. To make
matters worse, it’s credits to millos that the ape we’re looking for isn’t going to be
anywhere near the end of this line.”
“Huh? How do you figure that?” Haynes demanded.
“Logic. We’re getting up now to where these zwilniks can really think. We’ve
already assumed that they know about our beam tracers and detector nullifiers. Aren’t
they apt to know that we have inherently indetectable ships and almost perfectly
absorptive coatings? Where does that land you?”
“Urn . . . m . . . m. I see. Since they can’t change the nature of the beam, they’ll
run it through a series of relays . . . with each leg trapped with everything they can think
of . . . at the first sign of interference they’ll switch, maybe half way across the galaxy.
Also, they might very well switch around once in a while, anyway, just on general
principles.”
“Check. That’s why you’d better take the fleet back home, leaving Nadreck and
me to work the rest of this line with our speedsters.”
“Don’t be dumb, son; you can think straighter than that.” Haynes gazed
quizzically at the younger man.
“What else? Where am I overlooking a bet?” Kinnison demanded.
“It is elementary tactics, young man,” the admiral instructed, “to cover up any
small, quiet operation with a large and noisy one. Thus, if I want to make an exploratory
sortie in one sector I should always attack in force in another.”
“But what would it get us?” Kinnison expostulated. “What’s the advantage to be
gained, to make up for the unavoidable losses?”
“Advantage? Plenty! Listen!” Haynes’ bushy gray hair fairly bristled in eagerness.
“We’ve been on the defensive long enough. They must be weak, after their losses at
Tellus; and now, before they can rebuild, is the time to strike. It’s good tactics, as I said,
to make a diversion to cover you up, but I want to do more than that. We should start an
actual, serious invasion, right now. When you can swing it, the best possible
defense—even in general—is a powerful offense, and we’re all set to go. We’ll begin it
with this fleet, and then, as soon as we’re sure that they haven’t got enough power to
counter-invade, we’ll bring over everything that’s loose. We’ll hit them so hard that they
won’t be able to worry about such a little thing as a communicator line.”
“Hm . . . m. Never thought of it from that angle, but it’d be nice. We were coming
over here sometime, anyway —why not now? I suppose you’ll start on the edge, or in a
spiral arm, just as though you were going ahead with the conquest of the whole
galaxy?”
“Not ‘just as though’,” Haynes declared. “We are going through with it. Find a
planet on the outer edge of a spiral arm, as nearly like Tellus as-possible . . .”
“Make it nearly enough like Tellus and maybe I can use it for our headquarters on
this ‘coordinator’ thing,” Kinnison grinned.
“More truth than poetry in that, fellow. We find it and take over. Comb out the
zwilniks with a fine-tooth comb. Make it the biggest, toughest base the universe ever
saw—like Jarnevon, only more so. Bring in everything we’ve got and expand from that
planet as a center, cleaning everything out as we go. We’ll civilize ’em!”
And so, after considerable ultra-range communicator work, it was decided that
the Galactic Patrol would forthwith assume the offensive.
Haynes assembled Grand Fleet. Then, while the two black speedsters kept
unobtrusively on with the task of plotting the line, Civilization’s mighty armada moved a
few thousand parsecs aside and headed at normal touring blast for the nearest
outcropping of the Second Galaxy.
There was nothing of stealth in this maneuver, nothing of finesse, excepting in
the arrangements of the units. First, far in the van, flew the prodigious, irregular cone of
scout cruisers. They were comparatively small, not heavily armed or armored, but they
were ultra-fast and were provided with the most powerful detectors, spotters, and
locators known. They adhered to no rigid formation, but at the will of their individual
commanders, under the direct supervision of Grand Fleet Operations in the Z9M9Z,
flashed hither and thither ceaselessly—searching, investigating, mapping, reporting.
Backing them up came the light cruisers and the cruising bombers—a new type,
this latter, designed primarily to bore in to close quarters and to hurl bombs of negative
matter. Third in order were the heavy defensive cruisers. These ships had been
developed specifically for hunting down Boskonian commerce raiders within the galaxy.
They wore practically impenetrable screen, so that they could lock to and hold even a
super-dreadnought. They had never before been used in Grand Fleet formation; but
since they were now equipped with tractor zones and bomb-tubes, theoretical strategy
found a good use for them in this particular place.
Next came the real war-head—a solidly packed phalanx of maulers. All the ships
up ahead had, although in varying degrees, freedom of motion and of action. The
scouts had practically nothing else; fighting was not their business. They could fight, a
little, if they had to; but they always ran away if they could, in whatever direction was
most expedient at the time. The cruising bombers could either take their fighting or
leave it alone, depending upon circumstances—in other words, they fought light
cruisers, but ran away from big stuff, stinging as they ran. The heavy cruisers would
fight anything short of a mauler, but never in formation: they always broke ranks and
fought individual dog-fights, ship to ship.
But that terrific spear-head of maulers had no freedom of motion whatever. If
knew only one direction—straight ahead. It would swerve aside for an inert planet, but
for nothing smaller; and when it swerved it did so as a whole, not by parts. Its function
was to blast through—straight through— any possible opposition, if and when that
opposition should have been successful in destroying or dispersing the screens of
lesser vessels preceding it. A sunbeam was the only conceivable weapon with which
that stolid, power-packed mass of metal could not cope; and, the Patrolmen devoutly
hoped, the zwilniks didn’t have any sunbeams—yet.
A similar formation of equally capable maulers, meeting it head-on, could break it
up, of course. Theoretical results and war-game solutions of this problem did not agree,
either with each other or among themselves, and the thing had never been put to the
trial of actual battle. Only one thing was certain—when and if that trial did come there
was bound to be, as in the case of the fabled meeting of the irresistible force with the
immovable object, a lot of very interesting by-products.
Flanking the maulers, streaming gracefully backward from their massed might in
a parabolic cone, were arranged the heavy battleships and the super-dreadnoughts;
and directly behind the bulwark of flying fortresses, tucked away inside the protecting
envelope of big battle-wagons, floated the Z9M9Z—the brains of the whole outfit.
There were no free planets, no negaspheres of planetary anti-mass, no
sunbeams. Such things were useful either, hi the defense of a Prime Base or for an all-
out, ruthlessly destructive attack upon such a base. Those slow, cumbersome,
supremely powerful weapons would come later, after the Patrol had selected the planet
which they intended to hold against everything the Boskonians could muster. This
present expedition had as yet no planet to defend, it sought no planet to destroy. It was
the vanguard of Civilization, seeking a suitable foothold hi the Second Galaxy and