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Updated: May 3, 2025
The other room held a couch, two big easy-chairs, a low table, some bookshelves, a squat refrigerator containing food and drink for his occasional snacks his regular meals were brought in hot from the main kitchen and a closet that contained his clothing the insignialess uniforms of a Kerothi officer.
MacMaine smiled inwardly, although not a trace of it showed on his broad-jawed, blocky face. To give him the illusion that he was a guest rather than a prisoner, the Kerothi had installed an announcer at the door and invariably used it. Not once had any one of them ever simply walked in on him. "Come in," MacMaine said.
General Tallis reached into the pocket of his uniform jacket and took out the thin aluminum case that held the Kerothi equivalent of cigarettes. He took one out, put it between his lips, and lit it with the hotpoint that was built into the case. MacMaine took an Earth cigarette out of the package on the table and allowed Tallis to light it for him.
You'll get your terms: full pay as a Kerothi general, with retirement on full pay after the war is over. The pick of the most beautiful by your standards of the Earthwomen we capture. A home on Keroth, built to your specifications, and full citizenship, including the freedom to enter into any business relationships you wish. If you keep your promises, we can keep ours and still come out ahead."
But the same tactics were used when informing a person of the death of a loved one. In fact, MacMaine was well aware that such a period of silence was de rigueur in a Kerothi court, just before sentence was pronounced, as well as a preliminary to a proposal of marriage by a Kerothi male to the light of his love. MacMaine could do nothing but wait.
"You mean the application of physical pain? That's barbaric." "I won't pursue the subject," the general said with sudden irony. "I can understand that. But you can rest assured that we would never do such a thing. It isn't civilized. Our civil police do use certain drugs to obtain information, but we have so little knowledge of Kerothi body chemistry that we hesitate to use drugs on you."
MacMaine and the four Kerothi officers were sitting in the small dining room that doubled as a recreation room between meals. The nervous strain of the past few months was beginning to tell on all of them. "Six months ago," Tallis continued jerkily, "we had them beaten. One planet after another was reduced in turn.
The High Commander paused for a moment, then he said: "Proceed with the investment of the insignia." The Strategy General Sebastian MacMaine, sometime Colonel of Earth's Space Force, and presently a General of the Kerothi Fleet, looked at the array of stars that appeared to drift by the main viewplate of his flagship, the blaster-boat Shudos.
The switch which cut off the soft white light from the glow plates did not cut off the infrared radiation which enabled his hosts to watch him while he slept. Every sound was heard and recorded. But none of that bothered MacMaine. On the contrary, he was glad of it. He wanted the Kerothi to know that he had no intention of escaping or hatching any plot against them.
The orders were given to the remnants of the Fleet, and they cut in their drives to head homeward. And the instant they did, there was chaos. Earth's fleet of "ghost ships" had been patrolling the area for weeks, knowing that the Kerothi fleet had last been detected somewhere in the vicinity.
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