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Specialists in history could talk very learnedly about the developments on Mekin which paralleled the cabals headed by Lenin, and later, Stalin. Theirs was a much more durable organization than those of Napoleon and Mussolini and Hitler. The ruling clique on Mekin had begun in this manner. Mekin had once had a cause to which all its officials paid lip-service and some possibly believed in.
But, if he hadn't trusted the information enough to check on it, why, the small space-fleet of Kandar would vanish in atomic flame when it tried to take off to fight. With it would vanish Bors, and his uncle, and the king and many resolute haters of Mekin. Gwenlyn said, "You're perfectly right, Captain." "What's that?" asked Bors, numbly. "It is stark-raving lunacy," said Gwenlyn pleasantly.
It is necessary that we get all of them, so they can't report anything to Mekin that Mekin doesn't already know. All hands ready for action!" In twenty minutes by the ship's clocks the Horus was a bare thirty thousand miles off the planet Meriden. The new drive worked perfectly for planetary approach, at any rate. It even worked more perfectly than the twenty-minute interval implied.
Hating Mekin as befits the sole survivor of this fleet, Majesty, it would be natural for me to capture such ships, even if I could do nothing better with them than send them out to space to be wasted. They wouldn't be wasted, naturally. They'd come here." The king said, "But you couldn't supply the fleet indefinitely!" Bors nodded agreement. But he waited.
But the government of Mekin would not care. Mekin was a phenomenon so improbable that only those who were students of past civilizations could really believe it. There were innumerable references to such régimes in the histories of ancient Earth. There was, for example, Napoleon, said people informed about such matters.
He found two meteor-streams, and a clump of three planetoids in a nearly circular orbit, and he spotted a ship just lifted from Mekin by its landing-grid. It went out to five planetary diameters and flicked out of existence so far as radar was concerned. It had gone into overdrive and away. Another ship came around Mekin, in orbit. It reached the spot from which the first ship had vanished.
There were ground-cars at the street-sides. The men of the landing-parties established themselves briskly. One of them seized a staring civilian by the arm. "To hell with Mekin," he said conversationally. "Where's the communicator office?" "Wha what ?" "To hell with Mekin," repeated the man from the Isis, impatiently. "Where's the communicator office?" The civilian, trembling suddenly, pointed.
He had actually accomplished the purpose for which he'd landed, the getting of a shipload of food out to space, the announcement of the destruction of Kandar's fleet and the spreading of contempt and derision for Mekin in Tralee. Now he had to keep anyone from suspecting the importance of the cargo-ship. The demand for stores was a cover-up for things already done.
'All right, says he; 'gi'e me the shillin' now, an' we'll drop in at the "Goat" and split a quart together. 'All right, says the old bull-dog; 'it's th' on'y chance I shall ever light upon of mekin' a profit out o' thee. He lugs out a leather bag, finds a shilling, bites it to make sure of its value, hands it to the young bull-dog, and at the 'Goat' they actually pull up together, and young Snac spends the money then and there.
Jane she knits some, an' she kin do a lot o' fine herrin'-bonin' an' tattin' an' tambour wuck; but spinnin' an' weavin' an' mekin' candles an' soap, an' sich useful emplements, she don't consarn about no more'n my Lucindy an' Lucy. Henry, ef you eat any more o' thet bacon, you'll be squealin' lak a pig, befoh mawnin'. Hev some more honey, Mistah Dudley."
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