Battle for the Stars: The Space Opera Classic Read online

  The carrying-case contained a vera-probe projector with its tripod collapsed. Possibly the same one Tauncer had tried to use on him on the cluster world. Tauncer seemed extremely fond of the vera-probe, which must indeed be highly useful in his business. Probably he never travelled without one.

  He gave Lyllin the shocker that Tauncer had dropped. “Watch them. Back in a moment."

  He went out and rapidly, carefully, searched the grounds of the old farmhouse. He found the sonic device, squatting heavily behind a bush. He stood by it for some moments, perfectly still, listening, but there was no sound except the monotonous stridulations of insects. There did not seem to be anyone else around. Tauncer and the Earthman must have come alone. Birrel frowned. He picked up the heavy sonic device and shoved it into a new hiding-place in the brush, and then stood for a second longer, uneasy and baffled. There was no sign of a flitter. They must have landed back in the woods to avoid betraying themselves by noise. But he could not search the whole woods, not tonight.

  He went back to the house.

  "They're coming around,” said Lyllin. She was sitting in a chair in front of the two bound men, watching them. She rocked back and forth in a rhythmic motion, making the old floorboards squeak. “Look,” she said, in a voice that was just a little too high, “I found out what this queer chair is for. It's rather pleasant."

  "Don't find it so,” said Tauncer suddenly. “The creaking irritates me.” He opened his eyes, and Birrel had the feeling that he had been keeping them closed for some time, shamming, while he took stock of the situation.

  "Well,” he said to Birrel. “I'm an acknowledged expert with the sonic beam. Just as a matter of curiosity, would you mind telling me how you did it?"

  Birrel said, “We had warning—a friend of mine named Tom."

  Tauncer looked puzzled, but let it go. He looked up at Birrel with an insolent lack of fear.

  "How did you know I was here?” Birrel demanded.

  "We followed you,” said Tauncer. “It was easy."

  Birrel shook his head. “No. You didn't follow us here. If you had done that, you wouldn't have waited half the night to act. You found out about this place somehow, and came here. How did you find out?"

  Tauncer smiled.

  Birrel thought rapidly. No one had known about this old farm selected for their rendezvous except Ferdias and he, himself, and Karsh. And the inexorable mathematics of that simple equation admitted of only one solution. Karsh had not come to the rendezvous. And that aborted call the night before on his personal porto wavelength, that strange sigh and silence—it all added up to the same thing.

  A rage began to grow in Birrel. He had not met Karsh many times, in the past. He was certainly not his friend, for Ferdias’ chief agent could not afford the luxury of friends. But, all the same, he had liked the gray, quiet, dedicated man.

  He looked down at Tauncer and he tried to control his anger. It would not get him anywhere and he needed to think clearly, now of all times. Now, he saw, the Earthman had regained consciousness, too, and was looking up at him, scared, wary, and as viciously resentful as a trapped rodent.

  "You've got no right to do this to me,” he told Birrel loudly. “I'm a citizen of Earth, and you're an alien here,"

  "Shut up, Harper,” said Tauncer boredly. Harper swallowed, but he shut up.

  Birrel said suddenly. “You caught up with Karsh last night, didn't you?"

  Tauncer was too skilled in tricks to show the slightest emotion. He said mildly, “Did we?” But the Earthman, Harper, was not so good. His face changed for a fleeting moment, and, to Birrel, that was proof enough.

  He was quite sure that Karsh was dead. Tauncer, who must have come to Earth before the Fifth ever arrived, had won his years-long duel with Ferdias’ agent. The vera-probe would have emptied Karsh of all his knowledge, and there would have been no reason then to leave him alive.

  Birrel felt the disastrous impact of it. He had depended on Karsh to tell him what his course was to be in this dangerous and highly complicated situation. There would be no one to tell him anything now. There was no use calling Ferdias for orders, for Ferdias could not possibly estimate things from faraway Vega. He would have to think out his own decisions and he would have to do it quickly. The very fact that Tauncer had made this attempt proved that the crisis was sharpening fast. There might be very little time left before the blow-up.

  He said to Tauncer, “Now you can tell me some things."

  Tauncer's eyes looked up brightly at him, the contemptuous eyes of the adroit and wily man measuring the honest clod for another defeat.

  "You'll get no more from me than I got from you, Birrel—and you know it."

  Birrel said grimly, “I'm pressed for time. I'll get it out of you."

  "With the vera-probe? You don't know how to operate it.

  "That's true,” said Birrel. “But there are other ways.” He took the shocker from Lyllin's hand and motioned to her to get up. “Go on into the other room, dear. I don't think you'd enjoy this."

  She looked at him as though he was someone she had just met and was not sure she liked.

  "Try to understand” he said. “I don't do this sort of thing every day."

  "Of course,” she said. She went into the next room, and he shut the door behind her. He came back to the two men.

  Tauncer laughed. “Bluff."

  "You're sure of that?"

  "Quite sure. You're a good fighting man, but you haven't the stuff in you for this kind of work. If nothing else, the way your wife looked at you just now would stop you."

  Birrel nodded. “I think a lot of my wife. But I think a lot of something else, too, and that's the Fifth squadron. So you're going to tell me things, Tauncer. Like the present position and plans of the Orionid First and Third squadrons."

  "It won't work,” Tauncer said decisively. “I don't want to boast, but I'm plenty tough in my own way. To make me talk you'd have to do things that no decent, honorable dolt like you could do. I feel quite safe."

  Birrel looked with grim meaning at the Earthman, Harper. “He doesn't look as tough as you."

  Tauncer chuckled. “Oh, Harper's just the ordinary two-for-a-cent traitor you can buy on any planet to help you—he doesn't know anything. Go ahead and work him over, if you don't believe me."

  Harper's voice rose angrily. “That's a fine thing to say!"

  Birrel felt an increasing frustration. Tauncer lay there, bound and helpless, and yet the man had a boundless self-confidence, as though he held all the cards in his hands. What made him so confident? And why, after he had learned of this rendezvous from Karsh, had he come here? To kill Birrel, after questioning him with the probe, to demoralize the Fifth by suddenly removing its commander, a stroke timed to coincide with the appearance of Solleremos’ squadrons?

  He had to know where those squadrons now were and what they were going to do and when. Tauncer knew that, and must be made to tell, as quickly as possible. There was only one way Birrel could see to make him.

  He went into the next room and closed the door. Lyllin flashed a glance at him from where she sat.

  "I was bluffing,” he said. “And it didn't work."

  He took out his porto, set it to Brescnik's wave, and pressed the call button. Brescnik answered almost at once.

  "Something has come up,” said Birrel. “I don't think there's a lot of time."

  "Shall I go on Alert?"

  Birrel hesitated. He wanted to say, Yes. He desperately wanted every man in the Fifth at his post, right now. But he dared not order an Alert, not without some proof of Solleremos’ intentions that he could show Charteris and Mallinson. Otherwise they would surely interpret the Alert as evidence that Ferdias was indeed planning a grab for Earth.

  "No,” he said, after a moment. “Not yet. I need a man up here. Someone who can use a vera-probe."

  A brief silence indicated Brescnik's puzzlement, but heroically he refrained from asking questions.

  "There should b
e someone among our technicians,” he said. “I'll find one."

  "Send him up here as fast as you can,” said Birrel, and gave directions. “Keep on Ready."

  He turned off his porto and then swung around to Lyllin. “I have to stay here a while longer. I want you to go back to New York."

  She said evenly, “No,"

  He started to get angry. But he stopped. There was a certain look on Lyllin's face that he knew.

  "All right, but you're making it tougher for me,” he grumbled, and left her and went back to the other room.

  Tauncer and Harper lay where he had left them, Harper looking a little scared, but Tauncer's eyes still bold and confident.

  "So you're having Brescnik send up a vera-probe operator?” said Tauncer.

  Birrel was for an instant thunderstruck, wondering how Tauncer could have overheard, and Tauncer laughed at his expression. Only then did Birrel realize that the other had merely made a logical estimate of what he would do.

  It shook him, all the same, to realize that even though he was a prisoner, Tauncer was thinking way ahead of him.

  "Clever of you,” Birrel said grimly. “Thanks for reminding me of just how clever you are."

  He went into the dusty, back rooms of the old house. One had been a bedroom and still contained two beds with old-fashioned, ornate metal frames. Birrel eyed them, then went back and picked up Tauncer by the shoulders and dragged him roughly to the bedroom. He shoved him onto one of the beds and then went and got the coil of insulated wire.

  "This solicitude for my comfort—” began Tauncer mockingly, but then he stopped. Birrel, with a length of the wire, was tying his feet together. He then lashed the bound feet to the bottom frame of the bed, and secured Tauncer's shoulders with another length of wire he ran under the bed itself. He then dragged Harper in and tied him onto the other bed in the same way.

  I think that'll hold even a very clever man, for a little while,” said Birrel.

  For an instant, a vicious anger flashed in Tauncer's eyes. It was the first time Birrel had penetrated the mocking self-confidence of the man, and it pleased him immensely.

  He went back to Lyllin.

  "How long?” she asked him.

  "Several hours, anyway,” he said. “Brescnik will find a man fast, but it'll take time for him to get up here.” He added gloomily, “Too long. But we'll have to wait."

  Lyllin glanced at the window. A pallid light was streaking the dark sky outside.

  "Go get some sleep,” he said. “One of those rooms upstairs."

  She did so. Birrel sat and watched the gray light strengthen, going every now and then to look in at the two captives. Harper eyed him a little frightenedly, each time. But the third time he looked, Tauncer was either sleeping or shamming sleep. He thought it was real sleep, and it betokened a confidence that nagged Birrel with worry.

  Why should Tauncer be so confident—because he counted on help coming? Were others beside Harper in on this with him? Birrel took to walking around the house, peering out the windows in turn.

  The sun rose, washing the ragged fields and woods with golden-yellow light. He saw no one out there. Twice, he sprang to the front window as he beard a motor, but once it was a ground-car that went casually by, and, the other time, a heavy farm-truck.

  Lyllin came down a couple of hours later. “You didn't sleep,” he said accusingly.

  She smiled. “No. I'll get some breakfast."

  The midmorning sun was warm and they ate on the porch again. As though he had been waiting for them, the black cat came out of the shrubbery and strolled up onto the steps, insolently expectant.

  "Get out of here, you little pest,” said Birrel.

  "Oh, feed him,” said Lyllin. “After all, he did give you your warning."

  Birrel grunted, and tossed the leftovers onto the step.

  He was just turning to go and have another look at Tauncer and Harper, when there was the unmistakable sound of a car pulling up in front of the house.

  "Your man?” said Lyllin, but Birrel shook his head swiftly.

  "No, he couldn't get here this fast. Wait here."

  He grabbed the shocker out of his pocket and ran to the front of the house.

  CHAPTER 13

  The car had stopped in the front lane and a man was getting out of it. Birrel's grasp tightened on the shocker. But then an ample-figured, middle-aged woman got out of the car also. He looked back again at the man, and now he recognized the broad, ruddy face of the man he had met in the tavern the night before, the one who lived just down the road. Vinton. No—Vinson. He and the woman were coming toward the house.

  "Is it trouble?” asked Lyllin's quiet voice from close behind him.

  Birrel turned quickly. “No, just a neighbor, one of these farm people. You meet them. I'll be back in a moment."

  He ran back along the hall to the back room where Tauncer and Harper lay bound to the beds. Tauncer had his eyes open now. Birrel hastily inspected the insulated wires to make sure both men were still fast. Then he went out, closing the door of the room. He came through the hall and closed the hall door tightly, too. He didn't think his captives could be heard, even if they yelled. If they did make themselves heard, he could always say he had a drunken friend back there, and go back and silence them with the shocker. But, with a vera-probe operator on the way, he did not want to put them out for that long, if he could help it.

  When he got back into the living-room, Vinson greeted him jovially in his booming voice.

  "A little early for a call, Commander, but we were going by and Edith wanted to meet you folks. Hope you don't mind."

  Yes, he minded, Birrel thought exasperatedly. He minded like the very devil, but there was nothing he could do but smile, and shake his head, and go through the introductions.

  Lyllin was aloof and hesitant again with these Earth folk. But Mrs. Vinson did not seem to notice that. She stared at Lyllin with open marvel and admiration.

  "You came all the way from Vega with your husband. Think of it. Why, lots of women here on Earth have had their husbands go away into space, but not many ever went that far to stay with them."

  Birrel, chafing inwardly, asked them to sit down. Immediately Vinson began talking about the problems of farming, the high cost of automatic tractors and autoharvesters, the fact that weather-control was still not all that it should be and related subjects about which Birrel knew nothing and cared less.

  He began to feel caught in a minor nightmare. To sit here in an ancient farmhouse on Earth, listening to the gossiping of these worthy, but totally strange folk, while the conflict between Orion and Lyra could be rushing toward its climax, seemed insanely impossible. It was like one of those dreams, where you were trapped and tangled in ridiculously frail webs and watched disaster approaching you.

  Birrel became aware that Vinson's booming voice had stopped and that the man was looking at him questioningly.

  "I'm sorry, I was thinking of something else,” he said.

  "I was just saying,” Vinson said, “that when I called on that chap who bought this place, he told me he wasn't going to live here, but was buying it for someone else. But I sure didn't figure that someone would be one of the old Birrel family!"

  Birrel stared. Of course Karsh would have said something like that, and naturally everyone here would now assume that he was the new owner. And he could not contradict that assumption without a lot of explanations that he was in no position to make.

  "About working your land here,” Vinson went on. “The fields aren't too good, but they could be got in shape again. I'll be glad to help on that."

  "Why, thanks,” stumbled Birrel, “but you see, we'll be leaving very soon, going back to Vega—"

  "Oh, sure, I know that,” Vinson said heartily. “But, of course, you're planning to come back here or you wouldn't have bought your folks’ old farm. Might as well get some profit and use out of the place till then. Now, we'll go over the land together and figure."

  Birre
l did not know what to say to that. No one had dreamed that such ridiculous but real problems as this would come up when this old farm had been bought as cover for a rendezvous. In fact, they never would have arisen, if Karsh had met him here as planned. The doing away with Karsh by Tauncer had pulled the foundation out from under everything.

  Vinson misinterpreted Birrel's silence, and said quickly, “I didn't mean right now. Just dropped in for a social call but I thought I'd mention it. I'll come back later and walk over it with you."

  He rose to his feet and Birrel felt sharp relief, as he and his wife went to the door.

  "Sure would like to have you come over for dinner sometime before you leave,” Vinson said.

  His wife added coyly, “You're our celebrities here now, you know. In the village they're talking about having a Welcome Home celebration for you."

  When the two had left, Birrel turned and looked blankly at Lyllin. “A Welcome Home celebration. For God's sake, that's all I need right now."

  He hurried back to the rear room, to find Tauncer lying quietly and Harper squirming restlessly.

  Tauncer smiled. “You look worried, Commander. Things not going well? I'm afraid you're a little beyond your depth."

  Birrel looked at him steadily, and asked, “Who's coming, Tauncer?"

  Tauncer's smile faded into a wary look. “What do you mean?"

  "You're expecting someone to help you or you wouldn't be so cocky,” Birrel said. “Who?"

  "I haven't any idea what you're talking about,” Tauncer said lightly. But his smiling stopped.

  Birrel's forebodings deepened. He prowled the house and grounds more vigilantly than ever, and every time a car hummed down the road or a flitter buzzed over, he stopped and listened.

  The hot noon hours went by. The sun passed its zenith and now big clouds began to build in the western sky. Birrel began to chafe restlessly at this waiting. He realized it would take Brescnik a little while to find among the technicians of the Fifth a man who could operate a vera-probe. But, even so, he should have been able to get one up here by fast flitter by now.

  The bastions of cloud in the west swelled higher, and humidity became intolerable. Birrel went out and looked around again. From a distance came the sound of Vinson's auto-tractors lumbering about the fields on their appointed programs. The sky darkened, and Birrel thought that a storm was building. He came back to the house to find the black cat sitting on the porch and looking at him with an insolent air of ownership.