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And in the shifting confusion on the radar-screen, there was no trace either of the Jan Smuts or the Gaucho. "Well, the geeks did have an A-bomb," Themistocles M'zangwe said, at length. "I'd been trying to kid myself that we were just preparing against a million-to-one chance. I wonder how many more they have." "Paula, find out who was in command of the Gaucho; he'd be a junior-grade lieutenant.
The Keegarkan ship was completely blacked out, but the radiations from her engines and the distinctive radiation-pattern of her contragravity-field showed clearly, and there was a speck that marked her position on the radar-screen. The same position was marked with a pin-point of light on the vision screen some device on Sky-Spy, synchronized with the detectors, kept it focused there.
Bors almost chanted, while with gestures toward the radar-screen he picked out the objects near which breakout should fall. "Point oh five seconds." The ship went into overdrive and out. It seemed as if the universe dissolved from one appearance to another outside the viewports. "Five, four, three, two, one! Hold fire!"
But the computers could not handle an object which not only changed velocity but changed the rate at which its velocity changed. Missiles came pouring out of the Mekinese ship. They were infinitesimal, bright specks on the radar-screen. They curved violently in flight trying to intercept the Isis's missile. They failed. There was a flash of sun-bright flame very, very far away.
It always was, with a cold war in being. Overhead, the bowl cages of the radars moved restlessly and rhythmically. Outside, on deck, the huge elevator that brought planes up from below rose at the most deliberate of peace-time rates. The ensign said negligently, pointing to the radar-screen: "That little speck is a plane making for the landing field on shore.
Stand and be destroyed, and there will be no punishment for your world. There are no other terms." The Pretender looked at Bors. He shrugged. "Now what would the king do?" He looked puzzled. "What can our dummy fleet do?" asked Bors. The Pretender nodded. "We will offer no resistance," he said into the transmitter. There was a long silence. Bors looked at the radar-screen.
"Who do I tell this to?" "I name no names on microwaves," he told her. "Get going, will you?" "To hear," said Gwenlyn cheerfully, "is to obey." Her communicator clicked off. The Sylva showed on a radar-screen, but had not been near enough to be sighted direct. The blip shot out from the planet. Bors growled to himself. The Isis floated a hundred thousand miles off Garen. There was no challenge.
Keegark was dark, on the vision-screen; evidently King Orgzild had invented the blackout, too. Not that it did him any good; the radar-screen showed the city clearly, and it was just as clear on the radiation and heat screens.
The young men in the control room looked astonished. Then they saw Bors's expression, and grinned. A long pause. The boiling, shifting specks on the radar-screen began to have a definite order. The Mekinese voice, when it came, was triumphant and overbearing. "We will spare your planet," it said contemptuously, "but not you. You have dared to fight us.
Bors and the others could see the rushing, shining flood of missiles as it poured through space upon the motionless targets. "There!" Bors pointed. "The king's ship's breaking out! Away over at the edge. I wonder if the Mekinese will notice!" There were very tiny sparkles off at the side of the radar-screen. They increased in number.
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