Chapter 18

Auxiliary engines were removed from the hulk of the destroyed flagship. Installed in the Lavoisier, they could easily bring her speed up to that of the fastest ship in the fleet.

So with the small laboratory ship, Lavoisier, as flagship, the ravaged and reorganized fleet turned once again toward Earth. As the long days in space passed while they sped Earthward at incredible velocities, the physicists and engineers turned the Lavoisier into a deadly warship, the equal of any in their fleet. New and more powerful Atom Stream projectors were installed, and massive disruptor units were built into previous areas of more peaceful uses.

And while they hurled through the vault of space, Underwood moved from ship to ship by means of his abasic senses, testing, examining and filtering out the men of the battle crews.

If he could have afforded pity, all he possessed would have been expended upon them, for they were a pitiable lot. He knew that their standards of values had been scattered again by their defeat at his hands. If their belief in the invincibility of Demarzule, and themselves because they were the Disciples of Demarzule, had not been so great, their defeat would have been less easy. Underwood was thankful for the conceit that rendered them vulnerable when defeat hove in sight.

Their allegiance to him was no stable thing, he knew. But most of them were willing to throw their loyalties with the scientists because they hungered for leadership with a neurotic longing, and the power that could silently and unseen wipe out two of the Great One’s warships was surely a power to command their respect. So they reasoned in their bewildered minds.

Underwood removed from the key places those who were doubtful and rebellious, and he spoke to them daily throughout the long voyage, sometimes reasoning, sometimes commanding, but always with a display of power that they had to respect. In the end he felt he had a set of crews as trustworthy as Earthmen could be made in this culture of doubt and universal disregard of trust and honesty.

He practised constantly in perfecting the powers of the abasa, and as his facility grew, so did his regard for the little offshoot of Dragboran culture that had flourished upon the barren little moon. Such powers as he possessed would have meant suicide to his own race. Sometimes he wondered if he could himself endure their temptations long enough to accomplish his goal. Certainly, with that completed, he would have the organs removed. Their call to power, wealth, and the misappropriation were almost more than any human mind in this stage of evolution could endure.

Almost in Earth’s own front yard, at the orbit of Mars, the first signs of the coming struggle appeared. The lookout called his warning. A score of fast interceptors were leaving Earth, headed in their direction.

Underwood wished that he’d paid more attention to the military arts. He dared trust none of the warriors who were his by conquest, for he could not appear to be less than they in any respect. But neither he nor any of the other scientists were competent to lead a complex military unit, such as his fleet represented, into the vortex of battle.

Yet he must do what had to be done. He formed the fleet into a massive tactical cylinder with the Lavoisier at the center and the remainder of the ships at the periphery. There would be no fancy maneuvering, only blunt, smashing force, every erg of it that could be generated within the hulls of those warships.

The entropy dissipators were already at work absorbing a fraction of the momentum that had carried the fleet across the reaches of space, but as it drove into the heart of the Solar System, its velocity was still immeasurable by Solarian standards.

The interceptors were powerless to match that speed in so short a time, but one wave approached on a near collision course, with the fury of all its disruptors and Atom Streams bearing upon the fleet.

The effect was negligible, however, as the fleet smashed by, its own weapons flaming.

But that passage meant nothing. If the Lavoisier were to attempt a landing, it couldn’t continue to hurl by at such velocities, for already it was passing Earth.

Underwood, though, was satisfied as he opened his physical eyes in the control room and abandoned the abasic senses for a return to his normal self.

“I’m sure my useful range with these powers is at least eighty thousand miles. Jandro ought to have been able to examine the Dragboran planet by means of the abasa, but maybe he didn’t realize it. I know that my own range is increasing constantly.”

“What do you intend to do?” asked Terry. “Are you going to try a landing or attack Demarzule without going down?”

“I believe we’ll be safer to remain in space. If we can maneuver into an orbit of fifty thousand miles or so from Earth, and can hold off the attacks long enough for me to find Demarzule, that ought to be our greatest chance of success. If we landed we’d be sitting ducks.”

There was general agreement with Underwood’s estimate, though no one aboard the ship felt very much confidence in their ability to hold off the attacks they knew were coming. They kept reminding themselves that it was not important to save themselves or their ships. What mattered to give Underwood an adequate opportunity to hurl the powers of the abasic weapons at Demarzule. After that, chance would have to take care of the rest.

The hurtling projectile turned long after it had passed Earth. The entropy dissipators absorbed the flaming energy of the ships’ flight and dispersed it into space to recreate the infinitesimal particles that had been broken down to obtain that energy.

So, as the fleet braked its momentum and turned into an ever-tightening spiral, the interceptors swept down once more.

The thundering mass that was the fleet held its course now. Torrents of energy, slashed from the hearts of incalculable numbers of atoms, washed into space from the throats of the great radiators aboard the battleships. Three of the interceptors went down in that barrage before their own force shields went up.

It became a fantastic battle between almost irresistible forces. Both the Atom Stream and the disruptor beams could be fired only through a hiatus in the force shell, but such an opening was itself vulnerable to the enemy fire of Atom Streams. Therefore, the technique of warfare between similarly armed forces consisted of rapidly shifting the attack from radiator to radiator in a given vessel, so that no single opening would exist long enough for the enemy to concentrate fire upon that spot.

The interceptors were too small to mount the equipment for such defense tactics. Their only value lay in maneuverability. Slashing across the lanes of the battleships, their beams could cross the radiator pattern in unpredictable courses. The laws of chance were sometimes with them and their Atom Streams struck an opening directly. Regardless of the speed of closing the hiatus, such a coincidence was sufficient to destroy the ship. And so Underwood and his companions, watching, saw one of their great battleships explode in a nova of atomic fire as such a hit was scored upon it.

The interceptor itself was fired an instant later by the concentrated fire of the two adjacent battleships, but its loss was negligible to the enemy. The interceptors were expendable, expendable for now another score were seen leaving the rim of Earth and taking up the pursuit of the fleet.

But it was not their approach that caused the hearts of the men aboard the Lavoisier to quail. Behind them, slowly and ponderously, rose a terrible fleet of fifty dreadnaughts with vast firepower.

“What’s our orbital radius at present?” Underwood demanded abruptly of the navigator.

“Sixty thousand.”

“Take it, Mason,” Underwood said. “I’m going down.”

The impact of that moment hit them all, though they had been trying to anticipate it since they had first known that it would come. It was not their regard and friendship for Underwood, who might presently die before their eyes. It was not their own almost extinction before the fire of the invincible fleet rising to do battle.

It was that this moment would decide the course of man’s history.

Everything depended upon a single strange weapon snatched from the hands of a forgotten people in a little eddy of civilization, whose sole purpose in existence might have been to carry this weapon through time to this moment.

And only one of them could wield that weapon, while the others stood by, neither knowing the progress of that conflict nor able to assist.

Underwood sat down in the deep chair that would hold his body restfully while his abasic senses swept Earthward to envelop and crush the anachronism that he had turned upon civilization.

It was more than just, more than ironic, he thought. It was his high privilege to wipe out some of the guilt that he knew he could never smother or rationalize out of his mind--the guilt of having been the one to bring Demarzule back to life.

Of them all in that control room, only Illia uttered a sound, and hers was a half audible cry choked back before it was fully spoken.

He lay apparently relaxed with eyes closed in the huge chair in the control room of the Lavoisier, but the essence, the force that was Delmar Underwood, was sixty thousand miles away, hovering over the force shell dome that hid the Carlson Museum.

Simultaneously with Illia’s cry there came a smashing alarm that rang through the room with its insistent, murderous message.

“We’re hit! Number three and four shell generators have gone out!”

As Underwood held to the point of view of the advancing wave-front of perception, he had the sensation of diving headlong toward the throng that was gathering as if by magic about the white, shining columns of the building. As if knowing of the battle that was to be fought between the titans, the waiting thousands had gathered when the force shell went over the Carlson and the battle fleets took to space. They watched, waiting for the unknown, the unexpected, somehow sensing their destiny was being decided.

Sight of the milling thousands was lost to Underwood as he plunged deep below the protecting shell over the building as if it did not exist. The lightlessness inside the shell was broken by the blaze of lights that showered their radiance everywhere upon the grounds and museum that had become a monstrous palace.

Waiting, hesitant guards and servants moved about the grounds, gathering in knots to ask one another what the appearance of the battleships and the sudden use of the shell meant. It was inconceivable that anyone should be challenging the Great One, but the very improbability of it filled them with fearful dismay.

Underwood entered the building. The vast assemblage of instruments and machines that had filled the main hall when he last saw it was gone now, replaced with rich paintings and fabulous tapestries had been ransacked from the treasuries of the Earth.

There was no one in sight. Underwood continued on until he came to the series of large exhibition rooms toward the rear. Here, apparently, were set up administrative offices to maintain whatever personal contact was necessary between Demarzule and the Disciples he ruled.

Then Underwood came to the central room at the rear of the center section of the building. Demarzule was there.

It was with an involuntary shock that Underwood saw again the alien creature he had restored to life. As he sat in the throne-like chair in the center of one wall of the room, the Great One seemed like some sculpture of an ancient god of evil executed in weathered bronze. Only the startling white of his eyes gave evidence of life in that enormous bulk.

Underwood hadn’t expected the twenty Earthmen who sat near Demarzule, forming a semi-circle with the Great One in the center, as if in council. They sat in brooding silence. Not a word seemed to be passing between them, and Underwood watched in wonderment.

Then, slowly, Demarzule stirred. His white staring eyes moved, as though searching the room. His words came to Underwood.

“So you have come at last,” he said. “You challenge Demarzule the Great One with your feeble powers. I know you, Delmar Underwood. They tell me it was you who found and restored me. I owe you much, and I would have offered you a high place in my realm which shall encompass the Universe. Yet you set yourself against me.

“I am merciful. You may still have your place if you choose. I need one such as you, just as I needed the brain and hands of Toshmere, who was so foolish as to think he could be the one to conquer the eons in my place. You know of his fate, I am sure.”

Demarzule’s speech was a paralyzing shock. Underwood had made no revelation of himself, yet the alien had detected his presence. Through the abasa, he sensed the might and power of Demarzule, the full potentialities that lay in the three organs that the ancient race had developed, potentialities that he had scarcely touched in the short weeks of experimentation.

It made him sick for an instant with the fear of almost certain defeat. Then he struck, furiously, and with all the power that was in him.

Never before had he hurled such a bolt of devastation. With satisfaction he sensed Demarzule’s powers sway and wither before its blast, but the Great One absorbed it and recovered after an instant.

“You are a worthy opponent,” said Demarzule. “You have accomplished much in so short a time, but not enough, I fear. Once more I extend my offer to join me. As my lieutenant, you might become governor of many Galaxies.”

Underwood remained silent, conserving his forces for another blast which Demarzule could surely not endure. He hurled it and felt the energies flowing from him in a life-destroying stream. Demarzule’s bronze face was only smiling sardonically as he met that attack--and absorbed it.

“When you have exhausted yourself thoroughly,” he said, “I shall demonstrate my own powers--but slowly, so that death will not be too quick for you.”

The use of such waves of force was exhausting to Underwood, but he knew that Demarzule’s absorptive organ should soon reach maximum capacity, if it were not allowed to drain away in the meantime.

A third time he blasted. Then sudden, terrible realization came that Demarzule was not absorbing the energy. It was being diverted, drawn aside before it even approached the Sirenian.

In something approaching panic, Underwood directed his senses to locate the source of the diversion, and found it in the twenty Earthmen sitting motionlessly about Demarzule.

Demarzule seemed to know the instant that Underwood became aware of the fact. “Yes,” he said, “we have duplicated the abasa. Cancer is plentiful among you. In five thousand more years you would have stopped fighting it and learned how to use it. There are twenty of us. You would not have come had you known you would have that many to fight singlehanded, would you? Now it is too late!”

With that word, a wave, of paralyzing, destroying force swept over Underwood. How it was affecting him, what senses it was attacking, he did not know. He only knew that a flaming agony was burning out life, as if reluctant to give him a speedy, merciful death.

He must withdraw to the ship to recover his forces. He could never withstand the attack of twenty-one abasas.

Underwood relaxed and threw his powers back toward the ship--and failed!

Abruptly, the metallic glint of Demarzule’s lips parted in a roar of laughter without merriment, but of triumph.

“No, my brave Earthling, you cannot retreat. You did not know that. For those who would challenge the Great One there is no retreat. Your decision is made, and you will fail and you will die--but only when I wish, and your fellow Earthmen will find amusement in toying with you as a cat with a mouse before I give the final blow that will destroy your rash, impatient ego.”