Chapter VIII

"Six ships," President Holland told Alan at the New Washington Spaceport. "That's all we could make ready in time, Tremaine. Six battered line ships, out of commission for five years. It's all we had."

"I'm sorry, sir," a man in the uniform of a four star general told the President. "We sent all our power to the Outworlds."

"You couldn't do anything else, General," President Holland said. "We had received no ultimatum then. It seemed incredible Keifer or anyone would dare attack the Earth."

"I'll get through," Alan said.

Flood lights stabbed out across the dark field, criss-crossing it with brilliant beams of light. Ground crews scurried like insects caught in their glare, fueling the six spaceships, checking them, trying to accomplish an extensive reconditioning job in minutes.

Soon the spacecrews were jogging out on the field in bulky blast suits, small gleaming figures in the light of the floods. On one of the ships Alan saw the blue and gold symbol of the Outworld Federation, freshly painted, side by side with the globe and stars of Earth.

"You're blasting off for the good people of the Federation as well as for the Earth," President Holland explained. "We've radio'd the Outworlds and told them. We don't know the effect, if any."

"Keifer will have his hands full," Alan said. "I hope."

The jogging figures of the spacemen had separated into six groups of half a dozen men each, one group for each of the battered old ships.

"There's a launching site at the old, abandoned Terra Mines in Tycho Crater on the moon," President Holland told Alan. "If you don't get Keifer at the space-warp and stop him there, you'll probably find him in Tycho."

President Holland and the four star general were walking across the dark field with Alan now, toward the lead ship, standing on its tail in the glare of the flood lights. "All Earth is blasting off with you, Tremaine," the President said.

He shook hands solemnly with Alan. So did the General. Alan closed the airlock door behind him, heard a plopping sound as the airtight rubberoid fabric of the circular door gripped the hull and sealed it. The spacemen were at their stations, not talking, not smoking. Waiting.

Through the viewport, Alan watched President Holland and the General trotting out of the blast-off area.

Alan walked into the control room, past the grim, silent crew, each man stationed at his obsolete equipment. Half a dozen overage ships, with Earth's fate in the balance.

And Laura up there somewhere.

"Let's go," Alan said.

The rocket engines whined and shrieked into life. Alan and the pilot strapped themselves into blast chairs. The roar was deafening. Alan could feel his face contorted by eight G's pressure as the ancient spaceship blasted off. Then, his muscles bunched in agony, he blacked out.

* * * * *

Dazzling white with reflected sunlight but pock-marked with craters, shadowed with deep valleys and gorges, sundered by great rock faults, puckered with vast bleak mountain ranges the moon swept up at them.

"That reporter wants to see you now, Mr. Tremaine," the pilot told Alan.

"I haven't time for--what? What reporter?"

"The one President Holland sent along to cover the story for Earth."

"He didn't tell me--" Alan began, then shrugged. The reporter would be a nuisance, but it hardly mattered. "No interviews now," Alan said. "Tell him we're not going to land on the moon--yet. Tell him we're looking for the space-warp."

Gem-bright, unblinking, the stars of space gleamed through the viewport. Star-maps were spread on the floor of the small control cabin, crew members pouring over them. Somewhere out there, space should look different. Somewhere, starlight should be cut off by a narrow band of blackness--the space-warp. They had to find it, and they had to hurry. It made good sense to tell the Outworlders Alan had denounced Bennett Keifer as a traitor, for some of them might not fire on Alan's six small ships. But it also presented a danger: Keifer would probably abandon the hour of his ultimatum and rush ahead with his plans. They had mere minutes to find the space-warp. Perhaps already it was too late.

With the pilot taking over, Alan kneeled on the floor and studied the star-maps, calling out grid-coordinates while a man at the viewports checked them against space itself. Soon his head was swimming with the multitudes of white dots on the blueprint paper, with the white graph lines, the swarms of stars. "Sixteen-eleven," he said, "Deneb, Vega, Altair.... Sixteen-twelve, Pollux, Procyon, Sirius...."

"Check ... check...."

"Seventeen, one, Achernar, Canopus...."

"Check...."

Check, _check_, CHECK!

"Nineteen, three, Capella, Regulus, Alpha Centauri.... Nineteen, four...."

"Hold it! Wait a minute, Mr. Tremaine. If you draw a line from Capella through Regulus to Centauri, what else should you cross?"

Alan looked at his map. "You come close to Castor and Pollux, close to Cancer, you cross the constellations Crater and Corvus."

"Not out here, you don't."

Then Alan was running to the viewport. Between bright, unblinking Regulus and even brighter Alpha Centauri was--nothing. A hole in space. A long, narrow path of intense, unbroken blackness.

"That's it!" Alan shouted. He felt like laughing, like pounding the man's back, like dancing a jig. They had found the space-warp.

Alan ran to the pilot chair, swinging the small ship around almost ninety degrees. In the rear viewscreen he could see the five other ships wheeling about and following.

And something else--in front of them. Specks moving across the firmament in tight formation, growing.

Keifer's fleet.

* * * * *

He counted fifteen ships, each larger and with more firepower than his own, guardians of the space-warp, rocketing down toward them from where Corvus should have been, from the hole in space behind which the constellation Crater hid.

Alan flicked his radio toggle to the on position, said into it: "This is Alan Tremaine calling the Outworld fleet. Tremaine calling! Do you hear me?"

"_Go back to Earth, Tremaine. We don't want to kill you._"

"I'm flying the flags of Earth and the Federation. If you listen to me, it still isn't too late for Equal Union. I denounce Bennett Keifer as a traitor to Earth and the Outworld Federation, as my father would have done."

"_Go back to Earth, Tremaine._"

Alan shook his head, then scrambled the radio frequency to his small fleet's band. "Flagship calling," he said. "We're heading for the warp. Hold off the Federation fleet at all costs."

And, to the pilot: "Take her in, Stan. I'm getting into spacegear."

Five obsolete ships against the Federation's bigger fleet. A sixth ship to reach the warp and hover there while Alan explored. The odds against them seemed tremendous, but Alan brushed them from his mind. Swiftly, he climbed into a bulky spacesuit, inflating it while one of the crew secured the glassite helmet over his head. He tested the suit radio, secured a set of personnel jets to his shoulders, then clomped into the airlock with an atomic rifle, slamming the ammo pan into place in the breech. He stood impatiently at the outer door of the airlock, looking through the small viewport into space. Spinning in a great wheel formation, the three-dimensional equivalent of the ancient naval maneuver called crossing the T, the Federation fleet spun toward them.

Out to meet it--five ships, darting like silver midges at the giant wheel.

All at once, energy erupted searingly before his eyes as the fleets met. Two ships in the Federation wheel darkened and fell, tumbling end over end, out of rank. But one Earth ship was blown to pieces. If the rate of attrition continued....

He didn't think about it. He spun the mechanism which controlled the outer airlock door and pulled himself out on the hull of the ship. The battle formations were drifting behind him now. Ahead--the black tube of the space-warp.

Pointing himself toward the blackness, Alan fired his shoulder jets.

* * * * *

Here along the vast track of the warp, a station hung in space. As it swelled up toward him, Alan could make out three tiny figures, three men in spacesuits, watching him.

Space erupted violently about him as two of the figures raised atomic rifles to their shoulders and fired. Switching his jets on and off, Alan darted erratically through space to present a difficult target.

He was a hundred yards from the warp-station now. Overhead, his flagship was hovering on the sunward side of the station, casting a huge black shadow across it. Aiming carefully, Alan fired his own atomic rifle.

One of the figures collapsed on the surface of the station. The second was still firing at him. The third, unarmed, was watching. Alan swung quickly around to the dark side of the small globe, strapped the rifle to his shoulders, alighted on his hands and cartwheeled upright. Without pausing for breath, he unstrapped the rifle, held it ready at his hip and sprinted around the station.

Two heads bobbed into view on the incredibly close horizon. Alan and the Federation soldier fired simultaneously. Alan could feel the heat of the blast through his spacesuit. Before his eyes, his glassite helmet fused. A bare slit remained for him to see through.

But the second Federation soldier had fallen.

"I'm unarmed!" the third man screamed over his suit radio.

Alan recognized Captain--no, Major--Haddix's voice. "Lead me to the warp, Major," he said. "No tricks."

Seconds later, Alan was following the spacesuited figure across the smooth black surface of the warp-station. He passed one of the fallen soldiers, a gash torn in the fabric of his spacesuit. The body and head had swelled horribly against the suddenly unequal pressure. The thing inside the suit did not look human.

Major Haddix stopped at the brink of the space-warp, waiting for Alan with his back to the pit.

"Has the bomb come through yet?" Alan demanded.

Major Haddix made a lewd gesture, but his face paled behind the glassite helmet when Alan raised the atomic rifle and calmly began squeezing the trigger.

"Wait! I'll tell you. Don't point that thing...."

"Talk, damn you."

"It's already on the moon, Tremaine. Keifer changed his plans when he knew you were coming. But take it from me, you don't have a chance."

"What about General Olmstead's daughter?"

"She's with him, I think. Listen, Tremaine. Go easy. I'm only a professional soldier. I do what I'm told."

At that moment, a second shadow darted across the surface of the warp-station. Instinctively, Alan looked up. A Federation ship had come to do battle with the Earth ship hovering there, flashing by it and unleashing a salvo of raw energy. The Earth ship was swinging around to bring its own atomics to bear....

And then Haddix was upon him, clawing for the atomic rifle. They struggled there at the lip of the space-warp, the weapon between them. Slowly, Alan felt himself being forced around, felt nothing but space below his left foot as he tried to step back. Immediately behind him was the warp, and instant, horrible death if he fell in.

Haddix's gauntletted fist struck his glassite helmet, jarring him. Alan swung his arms wildly for balance, then remembered his personnel jets and switched them on, pivoting around at the same instant. Borne aloft by his shoulder rockets, Alan and Haddix spun dizzily over the abyss.

It was Haddix's own blind fury that killed him.

He swung his fists at Alan, trying to shatter the already damaged glassite helmet. He forgot that Alan alone wore the jets.

Alan watched the figure tumbling below him, head over heels, slowly, as in a dream. Haddix's voice came to him once over the radio in a hideous scream. Then the spacesuited form was swept into the warp, where it twisted, was bent and broken....

Overhead, the Earth ship hovered. Far away, the gutted hulk of the Federation craft which had come to challenge it was drifting off into space. Alan jetted for the Earth ship.

* * * * *

Hands lifted the helmet from his head, deflated and unfastened the spacesuit. "How are the others making out?" Alan gasped.

"They're gone. All gone. Five ships, five brave crews...."

"And the Federation?"

"Three ships left."

"Can we beat them to the moon?"

"We can try."

Just then the reporter joined Alan and the two crewmen in the companionway. "You'll reach the moon, all right," he said.

He was pointing an atomic pistol at them.