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"It's like fighting ghosts," MacMaine said in a hushed voice. For the first time, he felt a feeling of awe that was almost akin to fear. What had he done? In another sense, that same question was in the mind of the Kerothi. "Have you any notion at all what they are doing or how they are doing it?" asked Tallis gently. "None," MacMaine answered truthfully. "None at all, I swear to you."
It was a wonder that any of them had any moral fiber left. "But none of those who had any strength agreed to work with us," Tallis went on. "With one exception. You." "Am I weak, then?" MacMaine asked. General Tallis shook his head in a peculiarly humanlike gesture. "No. No, you are not. And that is what has made us pause for three years." His grass-green eyes looked candidly into MacMaine's own.
"If it were not for what I, personally, know about you, the Board of Strategy would not even consider your proposition." "I take it, then, that they have considered it?" MacMaine asked with a grin. "As I said, Sepastian," Tallis said, "you have won your case. After almost a year of your time, your decision has been justified." MacMaine lost his grin. "I am grateful, Tallis," he said gravely.
He looked up the ramp. "Are there any special orders at this time, sir?" he asked. "No," said Tallis, without turning. "Carry on, colonel." He went on up to the air lock. It had taken Tallis hours of practice to say that phrase properly, but the training had been worth it.
If his mind hadn't been in such a state of shock, he would have. There was no need to torture the man like this. "Go on," said Tallis, in a voice that had suddenly become devoid of all emotion. "Tell it all." "Earth was stagnating," MacMaine said, surprised at the sound of his own voice. He hadn't intended to go on. But he couldn't stop now. "You saw how it was.
"Tallis, what would your people have done if an invading force, which had already proven that it could whip Keroth easily, did to one of your planets what we did on Houston's World?" "If the enemy showed us that they could easily beat us and then hanged the whole population of a planet for resisting? Why, we would be fools to resist.
He had mourned them when an aircraft accident had taken both of them when he was only eleven, but he found himself wondering if it had been the loss of loved ones that had caused his emotional upset or simply the abrupt vanishing of a kind of security he had taken for granted. And yet, he felt that the death of General Polan Tallis would leave an empty place in his life.
You'll be the best-paid officer in the entire fleet; none of the rest of us gets a tenth of what you'll be getting, as far as personal value is concerned. And yet, it costs us practically nothing. You drive an attractive bargain, Sepastian." "Is that the kind of pay you'd like to get, Tallis?" MacMaine asked with a smile. "Why not?
"I brought your anti-coryza shot, sir," he said. In a small ship like the Manila, the captain and the seven crew members could hear any conversation in the companionways. He stepped inside and closed the door. Then he practically collapsed on the nearest chair and had a good case of the shakes. "So-so f-f-far, s-so good," he said. General Tallis grasped his shoulder with a firm hand.
"One weapon or whatever you want to call it. Practical invisibility. But that's enough. An invisible man with a knife is more deadly than a dozen ordinary men with modern armament. Are you sure you know nothing of this, General MacMaine?" Before MacMaine could answer, Tallis said, "Don't be ridiculous, Hokotan!
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