“Nuts!” yelled the real commander of the Parachute Ski Marines.
There was another lull.
A single Martian scout ship far out in space broad. cast to Earth that another attack was on its way, an attack more terrible than anything ever known in the annals of war.
Earth laughed and got ready. All around the globe there was the cheerful popping away of amateurs familiarizing themselves with small arms.
Fresh stocks of thermo-nuclear devices were delivered to the launching pads, and nine tremendous rockets were fired at Mars itself. One hit Mars, wiped the town of Phoebe and the army camp off the face of the planet. Two others disappeared in a chrono-synclastic infundibulum. The rest became space derelicts.
It did not matter that Mars was hit.
There was no one there any more — not a soul.
The last of the Martians were on their way to Earth.
The last of the Martians were coming in three waves.
In the first wave came the army reserves, the last of the trained troops — 26,119 men in 721 ships.
A half an Earthling day behind them came 86,912 recently-armed male civilians in 1,788 ships. They had no uniforms, had fired their rifles only once, and had no training at all in the use of any other weapons.
A half an Earthling day behind these wretched irregulars came 1,391 unarmed women and 52 children in 46 ships.
That was all the people and all the ships that Mars had left.
The mastermind behind the Martian suicide was Winston Niles Rumfoord.
The elaborate suicide of Mars was financed by capital gains on investments in land, securities, Broadway shows, and inventions. Since Rumfoord could see into the future, it was easy as pie for him to make money grow.
The Martian treasury was kept in Swiss banks, in accounts identified only by code numbers.
The man who managed the Martian investments, headed the Martian Procurement Program and the Martian Secret Service on Earth, the man who took orders directly from Rumfoord, was Earl Moncrief, the ancient Rumfoord butler. Moncrief, given the opportunity at the very close of his servile life, became Rumfoord’s ruthless, effective, and even brilliant Prime Minister of Earthling Affairs.
Moncrief’s façade remained unchanged.
Moncrief died of old age in his bed in the servants’ wing of the Rumfoord mansion two weeks after the war ended.
The person chiefly responsible for the technological triumphs of the Martian suicide was Salo, Rumfoord’s friend on Titan. Salo was a messenger from the planet Tralfamadore in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Salo had technological know-how from a civilization that was millions of Earthling years old. Salo had a space ship that was crippled — but, even in its crippled condition, it was by far the most marvelous space ship that the Solar System had ever seen. His crippled ship, stripped of luxury features, was the prototype of all the ships of Mars. While Salo himself was not a very good engineer, he was none the less able to measure every part of his ship, and to draw up the plans for its Martian descendants.
Most important of all — Salo had in his possession a quantity of the most powerful conceivable source of energy, UWTB, or the Universal Will to Become. Salo generously donated half of his supply of UWTB to the suicide of Mars.
Earl Moncrief, the butler, built his financial, procurement, and secret service organizations with the brute power of cash and a profound understanding of clever, malicious, discontented people who lived behind servile façades.
It was such people who took the Martian money and the Martian orders gladly. They asked no questions. They were grateful for the opportunity to work like termites on the sills of the established order.
They came from all walks of life.
The modified plans of Salo’s space ship were broken down into plans for components. The plans for the components were taken by Moncrief’s agents to manufacturers all over the world.
The manufacturers had no idea what the components were for. They knew only that the profits on making them were fine.
The first one hundred Martian ships were assembled by Moncrief’s agents in secret depots right on Earth.