Chapter IV

The spirit of the Leader rides with us, thought the destroyer's commander. The very force of his will has caused those fools below to leave their beam on. And they are members of the race that seeks to dictate terms to the Leader! So ignorant they are, so unenlightened. They are unfit to rule. By the great god Zabir--nay, not by that false god, but by the Leader, we are the only ones fit to rule and we shall!

"_Andrakalarn marsti virki!_" he shrilled into the intercommunication tube.

The moment of reckoning--in twelve minutes!

Meanwhile Charleston's spaceyacht was following the destroyer down the strange layer of wild winds in Venus' stratosphere. Some time before he had reached out a pudgy hand to turn on his infrared view-plates and the destroyer stood out sharply on the visual grid.

"Damn it!" the fat millionaire was thinking, "no state of war exists. Why should that Martian blast the patrol ship and tear away my broadcast antenna with a torp?"

The air was extremely rough. The yacht pitched and yawed, and with the pitching and yawing Charleston found his daughter Ginny at his side.

"Pater, what is wrong?" she queried in a post-deb voice.

"There's a des--" Jimmie started.

"Harrrrumph!" Charleston burst.

Jimmie was squelched.

"Just following another ship down which acts kind of peculiarly," explained the millionaire. "Wish I could report him to the Authority. Can't, though, a--er--meteor tore away the antenna!"

"Why are you swerving your course?" Unquestionably Ginny knew her rocketships.

"Winds are pretty bad. Seem to be coming full force from the southeast if you can trust the compass. Had to tack around to counteract their force." Charleston of course couldn't admit that his infrareds didn't allow for variable headwinds and compass deviations and therefor weren't as dependable as the Authority's beams.

But his daughter could.

"Why don't you switch onto the Authority frequency? The beam's on 65 megacycles in case you're interested."

Charleston harrrrumphed again but reached out to switch on the receiver.

Immediately he started receiving the steady hum of the on-course signal, broken at 30 second intervals by the keying of P V, identification signal of the base station. A minute later he heard the dash-dot signifying N, meaning that he was to the left (and in his case presumably to the north) of his course. Keying in the port jets he swung to the right and received the on-course signal again. He noticed with satisfaction that the destroyer had done likewise.

"Ginny," he admitted weakly, "this radio range business is quite _the_ business. Of course the Charleston infrareds--"

"_Of course!_" smiled the daughter.

It was Charleston's turn to be squelched.

Suddenly the range signals were interrupted by the beam operator's voice:

"PV, Pali-Vanyi. Notice to all spacemen. Due to the unusually adverse weather conditions at surface, the north-south landing beams will be left on permanently until further notice. PV, Pali-Vanyi."

Ten minutes had passed since Ward had begun rotating the goniometer. Ten minutes and Charleston and the destroyer were fifty degrees off the true course. Almost south-south-west of the field now and gradually bearing more to the south.

But Charleston did not know and he was praising the facilities of the Authority and remarking about how wonderfully his infrareds would work in conjunction with said facilities. The future of his invention (well, he had backed it!) took on a rosy hue. He would revolutionize interplanetary travel; he would simply make it easier.