Chapter XIV

They plummeted through space, towards the lead ship in the Thuscan fleet that was circling ever closer to the planet below. Stan glanced at his watch. Barely an hour remained before the planet below would be fighting a hideous, futile battle.

Barely an hour left in which he had to accomplish the impossible.

"Look!" somebody shouted. "Look at the screen!"

Stan glanced at it briefly. There was the Thuscan fleet laid out below--much nearer now--and the small, flashing dot that represented his own craft.

Behind him, strung out like a lazy figure C, was the rest of the Aurelian fleet. They were following the leader down, even though they recognized the enormous odds at which they were going to be fighting.

Courage, Stan thought, feeling something catch in his throat. The unknown weapon.

But just how much could it accomplish?

"Contact in half a chrono," the pilot said.

Stan walked over to him.

"Show me how this works."

It was simple enough, Stan discovered. The firing studs for the different, directional rockets could be played like the keys of a piano. And the radar that indicated distance from another object was accurate to the yard.

Stan studied the pilot for a minute, trying to guess at his reflexes. "When we make contact, do exactly as I tell you."

He shifted his gaze to the viewscreen. The Thuscan fleet was much nearer now, but the formation was changing slightly. The triangle was more ragged, more uncertain looking. They weren't sure of what was going to happen, Stan thought, and they were worried.

Which was just what he wanted.

"You'll kill us all!" a voice behind him screamed.

"Maybe I will," Stan mused softly. "I don't promise you a thing!" They were brief miles away now.

"_Fire left!_"

The port rockets lifted the ship slightly and they flashed directly over the Thuscan lead rocket, a bare half mile beneath them. The wash from Stan's rockets flared lightly over the Thuscan ship and then they were pulling away.

"Try again."

The pilot turned the rocket in a circle and headed back. Beneath them, the lead Thuscan ship was belching flame and breaking out of formation, trying desperately to get away from the insane men who were bent on committing suicide.

Stan flashed them again, even closer. There was no place for the Thuscan ship to go but down.

* * * * *

Stan laughed outright and drove it like a dog herding sheep, hounding them too close for them to bring their weapons into play, and daring death every time he drove at them.

He was courting death and he knew it. And didn't care. The minutes were ticking slowly by and he knew that time was running out for half a billion people on the green globe below.

He glanced again at the viewscreen. Space was a tangle of flaring lights and rocket trails. But confused as the picture was, he knew one thing. Surprise and courage had been the elements they needed.

They were winning.

He turned to Elal. "Get the Thuscans on the viewscreen."

A moment later, the picture on the screen faded and another control cabin faded in. The creature in the picture recognized Stan and a moment later the sober face of Mr. Ainsworth was staring out at him.

"You shouldn't be doing this, Stan," Mr. Ainsworth said, his voice sounding bewildered and hurt. "Is this the way you pay back friendship? Is this how you repay hospitality?"

He could listen to the words and know they were lies. He could look at Mr. Ainsworth and know what lay beneath that saint's face. But he still wanted to believe. He wanted desperately to believe. To be told by Mr. Ainsworth that all was forgiven.

His throat was dry and he was dripping sweat. His conditioning wasn't going to disappear over-night, he knew. It would be a battle all the time. And this was just the first round.

"I'm going to force down your ship and kill you," he said quietly. "But first, we're going to play tag over every civilized capital on the globe. We're going to let them know just what the story is. And then, if the Thuscan fleet still wants to come in, they can go ahead and try it. But I wouldn't advise it, Ainsworth! The apes won't be easy pickings!"

He flicked off the set. They were in the atmosphere now and the air was screaming past the hull. He could feel the temperature inside the cabin rise and then the refrigeration went into action.

They rocketed over the ocean and then they were over London, a bare five miles up. The ships and their exhaust were clearly visible to the frightened millions camping outside the city.

Stan drove the Thuscans over Paris and Moscow and Tokyo and Washington, timing his rocket blasts and forcing them whichever way he wanted them to go. He threatened to crash them from above if they tried to leave, and threatened to ram them from below if they tried to land.

Governments watched, frightened at the scene and realized what must be waiting out in space. Huge planes that had been winging over arctic wastes and across vast stretches of sea suddenly got crackling messages that forced them to turn abruptly in their courses and head for the nearest air field--whether it was friend or late enemy.

Far out in space, the void was filled with hulled ships and flaring rockets that suddenly mushroomed into gigantic explosions. Down below, Stan drove the Thuscan ship around the world and then towards Europe again.

He finally forced it to crashland in the Tiergarten in evacuated Berlin.

* * * * *

His own ship landed a block away.

The dazed officers in the compartment looked at him for guidance and he realized that he was still the leader, that they still didn't quite know what to do.

"You'll go out that airlock and you'll fight them," he said crisply. "Hand to hand, if you have to. But you'll have to fight them--and to kill them." He strode to the airlock. "Good luck!"

There was no motion about the other rocket and he thought for a frightening moment that everybody on board had been killed. Then he realized that they were waiting for him to make a move, to show himself for an easy target.

He found a hiding place behind a bit of rubble and adjusted the stud on his heat gun.

They weren't going to stay in their ship long, he thought. He would _make_ them come out.

He turned the stud to high and aimed the gun at a port near the control room. The crystal in the port colored, glowed, and suddenly fused. Stan could dimly make out the control console and flashed his heater at that. The violet beam touched the controls and they turned red and fused. Then the beam caught a thin fuel line in the console and there was a sudden spurt of white heat.

Seconds later, the fuel tanks erupted with a roar that showered bits of red hot metal over the whole area.

A moment more, he thought....

The air about him was suddenly thick with lancing, violet beams and he felt one touch him lightly on the shoulder, crisping the flesh and setting his shirt on fire. He winced and beat out the flames, keeping an eye on the hatch.

Then the hatch flew open and figures boiled out.

The slaughter was brief, and very thorough. But of all the creatures that boiled out of the hatch, Stan didn't see the two he was looking for.

When it was all over, he walked out to the field and glanced at the bodies. There were none that looked like Tanner or--thank God--Avis.

He was touching one body gingerly with his foot when the young pilot ran up to him.

"There was no action on the other side of the ship, was there, sir?"

"No. Why?"

"One of the ports, sir--fused. And there were no flames near it!"

Stan started running for the other side of the ship. There was the blasted port and then footsteps in the carbonized grass that had been flamed when the ship had landed. He ran quickly over the grass, following the footsteps, then glanced ahead into the city.

He caught one brief glimpse of them. Two figures disappearing behind some rubble, running toward one of the side streets....

And the hoop that Stan knew was in an alley behind the Russian owned and operated department store in the Eastern sector.

Stan dashed through the streets. They were two blocks ahead of him--Tanner and a girl, whom he was half pushing, half pulling.

A beam flared above Stan's head and he ducked and zig-zagged from one side of the street to the other.

The figures turned a corner and Stan fired one last, futile shot at them.

When he finally turned into the street, there was nobody in sight--only the whirling black velvet of the hoop.

He hesitated and then dove through it....

... to a street he had seen once before. The Street of Lepers in Casablanca.

The street was deserted--there were no signs of either Tanner or Avis. He walked slowly down the street, and then there was a rustling noise behind them. He whirled, just in time to see Tanner and Avis disappear into the hoop again.

He ran and plunged in after them. It was going to be difficult, he thought. He would have to leave the vicinity of the hoop to look for them. And once his back was turned, they would be going through the hoop once more.

* * * * *

He caught a quick glimpse of Tanner in the deserted streets of Barcelona, Spain. He almost ran into the two in the empty streets of Shanghai. Madrid, Paris, Stuttgart, Leningrad, Los Angeles, Dallas--the cities flashed by like a deck of cards that was flicked past his eyes. The unending succession of black velvet hoops through which he moved like a man traveling through an infinity of dimensions....

And then the apartment in Bristol and Tanner was there, waiting for him. Simply standing against a table, waiting. Avis was in the far corner, her face frightened and drawn.

Stan paused, eyeing the situation.

"It's been quite a chase, hasn't it?" Tanner asked.

Still the urbane Mr. Tanner, Stan thought.

"I caught you, though, didn't I?"

"It all depends on how you look at it. Perhaps _I've_ caught _you_."

Tanner held an unfamiliar weapon in his hand. Stan looked at it curiously and then knew exactly what it was. Tanner had gotten hold of Avis' time pistol. He was going to kill him like William Clark had been killed.

Tanner was going to age him a hundred years in a second.

"Think you'll get away with it, Tanner?"

"Why not? There's nobody to stop me!"

How many times had he died in the last eight years? Stan wondered. How many times had his life been hanging by a thread, waiting for somebody to cut it?

"_Stan! Duck!_"

Tanner had been distracted just long enough by the shout. Stan dropped to the carpet and rolled against Tanner's legs. Then they were both on the floor. Stan grabbed for the arm which still clung to the time pistol. Tanner grunted and twisted and then....

Stan paled and almost gagged.

Tanner was flickering.

In the background, Avis screamed. And then Mr. Ainsworth was looking at him.

"I'm your friend," the creature said weakly.

Stan weakened and almost let go.

"I'm your friend," the creature repeated softly, triumphantly. "I saved your life, didn't I?"

He was lying in the alley again, back in Chicago, lying there hurt and bleeding. And Mr. Ainsworth had come up to help him. Out of all the millions of people in the city, it was only Mr. Ainsworth who had helped.

"I'm your friend," the creature purred again.

That still, quiet morning when the chill air had hung heavy over the city....

And then the conditioning was totally gone and Stan felt exultant. He hadn't realized....

He gripped the arm harder and twisted and the time pistol went skittering across the carpet.

Mr. Ainsworth looked surprised and faded back into Tanner. A powerful, cold-eyed Tanner who suddenly wrenched free and bent Stan under him. He reached for a water carafe from the table to bring it down to smash Stan's skull.

Stan jerked his head to one side and doubled his legs under him and lashed out with them, catching Tanner in the chest. Tanner staggered backwards towards the hoop, his foot unintentionally pressing the on switch. The circle of black started to build up.

The time pistol was only a few feet away. Stan snatched at it and turned it on the still reeling Tanner. It caught the creature flush at the same time as he toppled back through the black velvet circle.

Stan's last glimpse of The Enemy was of a suddenly very old and aging man--hair whitened and thinning, lines etched deeply in the face, clothes sagging limply from a suddenly shriveled frame--toppling backwards into the hoop.

And then the solid circle of black suddenly broke and faded into the frame again.

Stan turned on his side and got sick. The Bristol hoop had been tuned to Chicago. Only there was no more Chicago and no more hoop there. But Tanner had toppled through--to where?

The creature that had been Mr. Ainsworth and Tanner was lost in a space that had no beginning and no end.

And no exit.