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Updated: May 8, 2025
The atmosphere-fliers of Kandar swung in a gigantic, ballooning circle about the spot where they had dropped a good fraction of a ton of bombs to the square yard. But nothing stirred there any more. Still, the planes flew in a great, deadly band about it until a flitterboat came out from shore and lowered a camera and a light by long, long cords.
One actual fighting ship, he stipulated, would form part of this illusory space-navy. He volunteered the Horus for it. That ship would signal to the Mekinese when they arrived. It would make the king's proposal to surrender, on the Mekinese promise to spare the civilian population of Kandar.
He could re-compute not only the tables for the missiles, but the data for low-power overdrive which would make any fleet invincible. And there was the Kandarian fleet. If its existence became known, it would mean the destruction of Kandar. Every soul of all its millions would die with every tree and blade of grass, every flower, beast and singing bird, even the plankton in its seas.
We will stop twice on the way for target practice. Much more than your lives or mine depends on how well you do your work. We'll also modify the overdrive to make this ship able to do everything my other ships did and more. You will work much harder on the way to Kandar than you ever worked before, but we have to accomplish more than usual. That's all."
Therefore, in part as penalty and in part as a reward to the men of the Grand Fleet, you will be allowed to land during a period of two weeks. You will be armed. You may confiscate, for yourself, anything of value you find. You are not required to exercise restraint in your actions toward the people of Kandar.
"It'll go to Kandar," said Bors bitterly, "to destroy it. I imagine we'll go there too, to be destroyed." "But it's insane!" protested Morgan. "Look! You captured a passenger-ship off Mekin. Right?" "Yes." "You sent it here with all its passengers. Right?" "Yes." "One of the passengers said he was a clairvoyant. Hah!" Morgan expressed the ultimate of disgust. "He was a fortune-teller!
The bearded man said peevishly, "But it should fight on its own! It should not compromise Kandar!" There was a murmur. King Humphrey looked about him from under lowered brows. "That can be arranged," he said heavily. "I will constitute a caretaker government by royal proclamation. I will appoint you," he looked steadily at the bearded man, "to be head of it and make such terms as you can.
The light of its explosion would not reach Kandar for very many thousands of years. The largest comet in the galaxy reached perihelion, and practically outshone the sun it circled. Nobody saw it, because nobody lived there. On a dreary, red-sky planet in Mousset, a thing squirmed heavily out of a stagnant sea and blinked stupidly at the remarkable above-water cosmos it had discovered.
Suns flamed and spouted flares. Small dark stars became an infinitesimal fraction of a degree colder. There was a magnetic storm in the photosphere of a sun which was not supposed to have such things. The war-fleet of Kandar, in very fine formation, flowed in its polar orbit around the fourth planet out from Kandar's sun.
The great ships drew close to one another and small space-boats shuttled back and forth, taking commanders and captains and vice-admirals to the ship, which, by convention, was commanded by King Humphrey VIII of Kandar. Captain Bors got to the conference late. There were some grave faces about the conference room, but there were also some whose expressions were unregenerate and grimly satisfied.
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