“Ganfre,” Moffis objected, “is as bad as Snard—and Ganfre attacked us!”
“Yes,” said Horsip, “but if Ganfre will go along with the idea, we should be able to beat Snard. With Snard out of the way, the threat that holds Ganfre’s pack together will vanish. Then if we can get a few of Ganfre’s people to go along, we can eliminate Ganfre.”
Moffis followed this line of reasoning.
“Truth.”
“Meanwhile,” said Horsip, “we have to get Columbia allied with us. Somehow, Moffis, we have to get more of these Earth-controlled planets on our side. We aren’t strong enough to win by ourselves, and the worst of it is, while we have a good-sized fleet now, these dictators have a big production to fall back on. We need to beat them quick.”
* * *
Unfortunately, Ganfre sent a new emissary to make a pact with Horsip, by which Ganfre and Horsip could finish Snard after Snard and Ganfre, now secretly allied, polished off Columbia.
Horsip hid his disappointment. “Columbia is a minor power. We should finish the source of the trouble first. Columbia would be easy later.”
“I am inclined to agree with Your Excellency,” said the emissary, looking sincere. “If only your offer of alliance had arrived sooner! But the end of hostilities left us in temporary disarray, and it seemed wise to unite momentarily with the common enemy of both of us. We did not at that time realize, of course, how you felt . . . Now”—he looked pious—”we must honor our commitment.”
“How,” asked Horsip politely, “does this attack on Columbia enter into the commitment?”
“It was Snard’s price for agreeing to hit you from behind if . . . ah . . . that is, for agreeing to stand by us in our hour of crisis.”
“I see.”
“But once we have fulfilled that sacred pledge, then your forces and ours may combine to eliminate the common enemy.” The emissary looked earnest.
Horsip looked agreeable, but regretful.
“It may be that there will be nothing left for us to be allied with.”
“But I thought Your Excellency was of the opinion that Columbia is a minor, if somewhat dangerous, power?”
“It is not your enemy that gives me concern, but your ally. In such an attack, there could be many opportunities for”—he searched for the word—”errors.”
The emissary looked moody.
“I think we have thought of all of them. But, it is true—with such friends as that, there is no telling.”
Horsip said, “If you come out of it with a whole hide, then offer us this agreement.”
After the emissary had left, Moffis said, “Once they finish Columbia, then what?”
“Then,” he said, “they finish us. After that, they eat each other up.”
“Then we should help Columbia.”
Horsip nodded, and sent for Hunter, who had come after sending the bulk of his mysterious fleet on “maneuvers.”
Hunter entered the room looking faintly dazed.
Horsip, who had never seen Hunter like this, sat up in alarm.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve just been in your Records Section, studying reports on Mikerils.”
“Bad as they are, we have a worse problem. If we don’t help Columbia, Snard is likely to win this war.”
“Not Snard. The Centrans will win.”
Horsip, knowing the way Earthmen used the word “Centrans” to mean anyone of Centran descent, considered the various dictatorships, revolutionaries, maniac faddists of all manner of cults, and said, “Which Centrans?”
Hunter glanced toward a rugged guardsman recently arrived with the Fleet.
“That’s the kind. It won’t be long before there won’t be any other kind.”
“Why?”
Hunter started to speak, then shook his head.
“To explain that would be complicated, sir.”
Horsip shrugged. “Snard and Ganfre have ganged up against Columbia. Unless we help, I think Columbia will get beaten. But we aren’t strong enough to intervene openly.”
“If we waited until they are right in the middle of the attack—”
Horsip shook his head.
“The commander of Fleet V tells me that there are other ‘fleets,’ so-called, which I think must be mostly for deception purposes—like your ‘fleet’—but they must have some real strength, and, as I calculate it, the united real parts of these fleets would make us much stronger than we are now.”
Hunter said, “You want to gather your strength, so you need time for these units to come in?”
“Yes.”
Hunter looked thoughtful.
“There are a few stunts we’ve worked out that we’d like to try on these birds. Sir, if we could have permission to operate completely on our own—”
“Granted,” said Horsip promptly.
Hunter saluted, and went out with a look of creative enjoyment.
Moffis put down a phone, and turned to Horsip.
“Another Mikeril attack! The commander of the guard says ten thousand have hit the outskirts of the capital in the last hour. They avoid the troops and hit the populace. Fifteen thousand more went by overhead, to attack the outlying districts.”
“Overhead?”
Moffis said, “It’s impossible, but they do it.”
Chills ran up and down Horsip’s spine. A verse from school days went through his head:
By day, by night,
In eerie flight,
Their shadows pass across the sky.
They stoop, they dive,
Their numbers thrive.
Through air and space in hosts they fly,
Drawn by unseen cords that tie
Sinners to the Mikeril hive.
Moffis said, “If it gets any worse, we’re going to have an invasion on our hands. You can’t call it anything else, when they start coming in like this.”
“Where do they come from? Moffis, you know that poem . . . ah . . . ‘Through air and space in hosts . . .’ ”
Moffis shivered. “I know it.”
“That part about ‘space’—that, at least, should be impossible.”
Moffis nodded. “It should be. But how do they fly through air?”
Horsip considered it. How did they fly through air? It was impossible. The Mikerils were big, hairy, clawed creatures, as large as a man, hideous to look at, and according to legend they could tie a man up in invisible strands. He had seen at least part of it confirmed. But . . . the creatures had no wings.
Horsip shook his head. They had troubles enough without this complication.
* * *
In the following weeks, the Mikeril attacks didn’t slacken. They got worse. They swept over the planet like a hurricane. As the reports flooded in, Horsip found it impossible to separate fact from panic, chose a newly arrived brilliant staff officer, and let him read the Mikeril reports. Horsip went out with Moffis to visit the troops.
“Here they come, sir,” roared a sergeant in charge of a squad with a big splat-stitcher.
Straight ahead, low over the trees, came a thin grayish blur. Swiftly it enlarged into countless black dots.
The sergeant shouted, “Ready! Here they come!”
Somewhere there was a blast of a whistle.
The sergeant shouted, “Loaders back! Aim high and sweep! Fiiire!”
The gunner shook in his seat, the numerous belts of ammunition fed up to their separate guns, the frame blurred, streams of glowing tracers arced out. All around Horsip was a hammer and rattle that deafened him. Then the nearest gun ceased fire, and the loaders ran up with fresh belts of ammunition.
In the distance, the dark cloud sheared off.
The sergeant bellowed, “Ceeease fire!”
Horsip and Moffis went up with the colonel in charge of the unit to look over the slaughter. The Mikerils were strewn in grisly heaps . . . And not one had wings.
Horsip returned from his inspection tour to find that, while the population was being decimated by the Mikerils, the balance of force between Centra and the dictators had again shifted.
The dictators, locked in their savage battle to exterminate Columbia, were being diligently sabotaged by Able Hunter, whose brief battle reports spoke of fine strong wires that opened up the Snard ships like pea pods, and of undetectable leech-mines that sought out the enemy ships and blew them up. But Hunter could only inflict painful bites on the gigantic mass of the enemy fleets.
What altered the situation overnight was the unexpected arrival of Battle Fleet II of the United Arms of Centra. Battle Fleet II, it quickly developed, was as powerful as Battle Fleet V. Even allowing for the mushrooming production of the dictators, Centra was now very nearly as strong as either of them.
Horsip at once lifted his command ship from its landing place, and led his fleets against the enemy at the height of its siege of Columbia.
* * *
The big screens in Horsip’s command ship showed the situation plainly. The outer planets of the Columbian system were under the control of Snard and Ganfre. The system had an asteroid belt, in which the battle for control was apparently going against the outnumbered Columbians. The dictators had also succeeded in seizing a huge satellite closely circling the Columbian sun. The inner planets remained under Columbian control, but a huge invasion fleet was preparing to attack the home planet itself.