Chapter I

Over the hubbub and chatter came the brief warning wail of a small siren. The noise died as the people in the vast waiting room stopped talking.

"Your attention, please!" boomed the loud-speaker. "Passengers for Spaceflight Seventy-nine, departing for Castor Three and Pollux Four, will proceed to Gate Seven for ground transportation to the take-off block. Spaceflight Seventy-nine, waiting for passengers at Gateway Seven!"

There was a moment of silence, then a loud racket burst out as everybody started talking at once. There was only a small flow of people toward Gate Seven, almost negligible, because Flight Seventy-nine was essentially a cargo hop. In fact, this morning less than a half-dozen headed for the gateway.

Among these was a tall man, impressive in his blue-black uniform. A space commodore, no less. He carried the light bag of the woman who was beside him, proud and happy and eager-looking. But traces of some internal storm clouded the man's features, and as they approached Gateway Seven, the man's perturbation worked closer and closer to the surface until finally it broke through.

"You could still back out," he said.

"No, I couldn't," she said. Her own face clouded a bit.

"Yes, you could," he snapped.

She stopped ten or fifteen feet from Gateway Seven and turned to face him. She was pert and pretty in a traveling suit of gray; brand-new for this occasion. Her name was Alice Hemingway, but she would have swapped it in a minute to become Mrs. Theodore Wilson, even on a commodore's salary.

"Look, Ted," she said slowly. "We've been back and forth over this argument for a couple of months now. Can't you forget it?"

"No, I can't," replied Ted Wilson. "I don't like the idea of you taking to space."

"I do," she said simply. "I want to see these places you are always telling me about. I want to see 'em before I'm sixty. It's no fun listening to your stories, then having you trot off for three or four months on another jaunt while I sit home alone and wonder where you are and what's doing."

"But we--" He paused, thinking. "Alice," he said suddenly, "will you marry me?"

A welling of tears came then, but Alice blinked them back. "If you'd asked me that a month ago I would have said 'Yes,' with no stipulations, but right now I'll say 'Yes, as soon as I come back, if you still want me.' Understand?"

"Not quite."

"I want you to be dead certain that the reason you want to marry me is not to keep me from taking this spaceflight."

* * * * *

Ted looked down at her. "I'd really like to know if you accepted this trip just to force me into asking you," he said slowly.

"You'll never know," she said with a bright smile.

He swore under his breath. "I still don't like the idea of you trotting off to Castor Three with that old goat."

"Mr. Andrews? Old goat? Why Ted! You're jealous."

"I am."

"Good. Stay jealous. But don't be an imbecile. Mr. Andrews is merely my boss, not my lover. He has never so much as watched me walk, let alone made a pass at me. I couldn't think of him as anything but a boss."

"But up there--"

Alice shook her head. "Forget it, Ted. I'm still your girl, and I intend to stay that way. Even though it's smart for a girl to have a lover or two before she marries, I'm the old-fashioned one-man type. Virgin. No hits, no runs, no errors, and no one left on first base."

"Okay," he said sullenly.

She smiled up at him again. "Ted," she said seriously, "don't you see I have to go a-space? You've ducked marriage because you can't see two people living on a commodore's salary, and also with you flitting off and leaving me home alone. So you want to wait until you get your next boost. But that will get you stationed on some planetary post. I'll get one flight to Base, then be set down for years. Well, until that time I'm going to travel and see the interstellar sights. I want to see the Dark Column on Procyon Five, I want to visit the Golden Rainbow on Castor Three, and toss a penny into the Bottomless Pit on Pollux Four, and.... Well, I can do these things so long as Mr. Andrews wants me to travel."

"But--"

"Oh, Ted--please!" she cried.

She clutched at him and buried her face in his shoulder. He held her, then put a hand under her chin and lifted her face. He kissed her, not tenderly, but with more of a frantic striving for something beyond reach.

The siren wail lifted again and the loud-speaker boomed:

"Last call for Spaceflight Seventy-nine at Gateway Seven. Will Miss Alice Hemingway please proceed to Gateway Seven!"

Reluctantly she withdrew herself from her sweetheart's arms and turned to the gateway. Ted picked up her small bag and followed her.

As they reached the gate a smallish, nervous, wiry man with a clipped gray mustache eyed Alice crisply.

"Ah, Miss Hemingway, you're just in time," he said. He smiled thinly as he looked at Ted Wilson. "However, I presume the delay was justified. Commodore, I think the use of your handkerchief is essential."

Before Ted could reply, Mr. Andrews had walked through the gateway to the waiting spaceport bus. Alice turned back to Ted and held up her face. This time their kiss was less frantic, but also less personal. It was chaste, and brief, and proper. It promised for the future, but it did not give any part of that future warmth or passion as a down payment.

Then Alice came out of his arms and went through the gateway to climb into the bus beside her boss.

As Commodore Wilson turned away, the bus drove off along the road to the waiting spacecraft.

* * * * *

Commodore Wilson entered the base commander's office and smiled glumly. The commander, Space Admiral Leonard F. Stone, a man of about forty-five and as lithe and as hard as a man of that age could be, looked expectant. His command was exacting and just, but he was also human.

He said, "What's troubling you, Wilson?"

"Admiral," Ted Wilson said, "I know it is against the unwritten rules to discuss the matter of increase in rank, but I wonder if we mightn't break them for a minute or two."

"We might if there were proper justification. Why?"

"A commodore's salary is just a bit meager for marriage," said Wilson unhappily.

Stone's face clouded a bit and he nodded seriously. "I know," he said. "But there's a reason, Ted. We do prefer to keep our commodores single so long as they're in active flight service. So long as you are well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed yourself, the monetary payment is sufficient to take care of your personal needs. I know it is not enough to provide for a wife on top of that. Of course, some men do. And others manage to marry well-to-do women."

"Mine is not well-to-do, but I don't want to make her do with less."

"Naturally."

"Then how about this rank business? I'm about due."

"You are."

"Then when can I expect it?" asked Wilson.

Admiral Stone looked at him determinedly. "You can hasten that process yourself, Wilson. By acting a bit more for the benefit of the Service than you have in the past."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"There's more to rank than merely following orders to the letter. Now, you've never disobeyed orders, and it has been obvious that when orders coincide with your personal ideas, you act eagerly and swiftly. But when orders are opposed to your pleasure you act at the last moment and follow them reluctantly along the thin outer edge."

"For instance?"

"For instance last November. You had front line tickets to the finish post of the Armstrong Classic, but you were ordered on a training flight around and through the Centaurus System, to last no less than ten days and no more than thirty, at your discretion. You returned in ten days and four hours, even though you couldn't see the end of the Armstrong affair. Then, last May you were ordered to Eridanus Seven, which is a remarkably interesting place as I recall from my early days. You got home barely under the wire. Twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, forty minutes, and a few seconds. Follow?"

Ted nodded slowly. "I felt that my crew would appreciate my attitude," he said.

"Certainly. They did. Both times. They also appreciate your stalling in a stack-circle, waiting for that last half-hour to expire so they'd draw overtime flight pay. But you've got to remember, Wilson, that we are running the Space Service for the public weal, not for the benefit of the spacemen. A parent does not bring up a child knowing only the pleasant things of life. A balanced program of work and play is essential. I know that the Centaurian run is no picnic, but it is a fine training for spacemen. Now, that'll be all. I'm not criticizing you Wilson. I recall doing similar things myself years ago. It does draw a crew closer to their commander when he gives them consideration. But making them work makes them efficient, and they will also love a commander who mixes well his periods of pleasure with hours of hard work. Agree?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Fine," said Admiral Stone. "So now that you know, we'll watch you for a bit. If you come through, you'll get your increase in rank--and your girl." He smiled. "You're a good commodore, Wilson. But with a little work and application you could be brilliant. We need brilliant men. Remember that. Good-by and good luck, Commodore Wilson...."

* * * * *

His name translated from his native tongue, was Viggon Sarri. In medieval times he might have been called "Sarri the Conqueror" for his exploits, his conquests. But of course then it was the king, emperor, or caesar who led his own troops.

In these days the ruler sends out men of military might to fight his battles, and Viggon Sarri was not a ruler. His position was the equivalent of space admiral in the Interstellar Service, and though devoted to his own service, he was only a paid hand.

His home was far across the galaxy from Sol and the sprinkling of stellar systems colonized by human beings. Viggon Sarri had never met a human, he did not know that this section of the universe had any trace of sentient life. He was just out looking for new worlds to exploit, perhaps to conquer. A new district to colonize, perhaps, or a world of beings advanced at least to the point where the produce and manufacture of his homeland could be sold for metal.

Naturally, Viggon Sarri explored space at the head of several hundred ultra-fast and ultra-hard-boiled fighting spacecraft--fourteen big battle wagons, two fighter carriers each providing a hundred one-man space attack craft, and one hunter, a detecting craft. It was loaded to the astrodome with every device for locating evidences of anything from advanced races to enemy spacecraft.

Sarri rode in his flagship, one position ahead of the hunter. And so, when the detecting equipment in the hunter registered that some race in this sector of the galaxy was advanced enough to be using the power of the atomic nucleus, Viggon Sarri gave orders for his fleet to spread out in a big, flat dishlike formation, flatwise toward this section of the sky.

It came to as near a halt as anything can approach in deep space, and Viggon Sarri called a conference.

He sat at the head of the table, his two second officers at his left and right. They were equal in rank, Regin Naylo and Faren Twill. This irked them both, and for a long time they had been striving to rise above one another. But only Viggon Sarri knew which was listed in the sealed orders, to be opened only in the case of the death of the supreme commander.

At the far end of the table sat Linus Brein, commander-mathematician of the hunter spacecraft.

Viggon said, "Linus, what do we know about these people?"

Brein thought, then said, "Very little, actually. They use atomic power. They have discovered interstellar flight. They seem to have some interstellar commerce. They use the infrawave bands for communication across space. I would say, off-hand, that they may have colonized no more than a dozen planets, and are exploring perhaps a dozen more. I would also guess that their exploration is done by sheer go-out-and-look techniques."

"Why do you suggest that?" asked Viggon.

"Analogy. Their use of the infrawave is not highly developed. I doubt that they have planet-finding equipment. I have not noticed any attempt to use the infrawave as a detecting and locating means. Only for communication is the infrawave employed by them."

"I see. Any more?"

"Not at present," said Linus Brein. "We will collect more as our men pick up information and our analyzers compile data."

"Keep me posted," ordered Viggon Sarri.

He sat there in silence, a tall man with a thin face that looked wolfish. His ears were flat and distorted, to the human point of view. His eyes were glittery bright, having that shiny cornea characteristic of the nocturnal animal of Terra. He had six stubby strong fingers on each hand and a long double-jointed thumb. Each hand had two palms, fore and back so that the fingers could curl either inward or outward. His elbows were double, one bent in or locked straight, the other bent out or locked straight, as he moved.

* * * * *

Viggon stared at the ceiling, lost in thought. His eyes, roaming independently gave his features a bizarre look which his own race thought quite natural.

Finally he said, "Has anybody any suggestions?"

Regin Naylo said, "I say we attack as soon as we know more about them."

He felt confident. He believed that his admiral enjoyed swift and decisive action, and by suggesting it he hoped to show that his thoughts ran in the same channels as those of his commander.

Faren Twill said, "It might be better to make allies of them, rather than enemies."

Twill held the notion that Viggon Sarri's main motivation was to build and expand in the easiest, and most profitable manner. And he felt that careful negotiations might pay off better than invasion and strong conquest.

But in truth Viggon Sarri himself did not know which course to take. He was not above the use of force, if force were needed. Nor was he against the idea of peaceful negotiation, even the formation of an alliance. Which course he would take depended entirely upon what sort of culture this was, how the people reacted, and what they favored. For such knowledge he would rely on data collected by Linus Brein and analyzed by the mathematician's vast bank of computers.

Regin Naylo grunted in a superior tone. "They sound like an inferior race. Inept and primitive. Let's not waste time."

Faren Twill shook his head. "You want to barge in there with the projectors flaming and conquer them by force. That would be easy, but would it leave enough to make the conquest economically sound?"

"Can you sell anything to mice?"

Faren Twill grinned. "Cheese," he suggested. "Besides, an angry gang of rats can do in an elephant, you know."

"Chicken," sneered Regin Naylo.

Of course none of them had ever seen a mouse, a rat, an elephant, or a chicken. But on their homeland, a planet called "Brade," there were myriad life forms, just as on any inhabitable planet. The forms of animal life mentioned were similar enough to permit a free transliteration. "Chicken" also existed in its completely alien form.

But until the native tongue of Brade becomes common to Earthmen, this loose transliteration of their speech characteristics suffices to convey their meaning. Since their grammar bears no relation to any Solarian tongue, it must be converted rather than translated, or even transliterated. So if they sound like people of Earth instead of extra-solar aliens, that is the only way to convey their meaning.

"Twill is right," said Viggon Sarri. "We must be wary. This may be a communal culture, like that of the insect, ant, in which the individual is expendable so long as the nucleus is undamaged. In such a case suicide fighters would swarm over us, and against such we could not stand. If, on the other hand, this is a completely individualistic, or anarchic culture, we must call Brade for help. We would need a horde of space fighters to control the entire group." He looked at Linus Brein. "You will, of course, have their language analyzed?"

"We are working on it now. It is not difficult to connect the sound forms with the meaning, under known conditions and situations. But it is extremely difficult to make such analysis when we have not the foggiest notion of what situation is being described by the sounds. I--"

* * * * *

A winking light on the wall called his attention. Linus Brein touched a stud on an armlet. The tiny communicator said, in a thin, tinny voice:

"Commander Brein? Analyst Hogar speaking. The space-strain detectors have just picked up a violent response. The computer-analyzer bands report the following probability to at least three nines: That a space craft has foundered due to the failure of the warp-generator. Have you any orders as to our next moves?"

"Yes, Hogar. Record everything. Analyze everything!" He let the stud snap back into place, then said to Viggon Sarri:

"An ill wind blows, Admiral Sarri. Their misfortune may be our gain."

"It might indeed." Viggon nodded.

"I suggest that we send a fleeter out to seek survivors," said Regin Naylo.

"No," said Faren Twill. "We will learn more by listening to their communications and watching how they face this problem."

"What's better than a being able to interpret his own sounds?" snapped Naylo.

"Taking a little longer by doing it ourselves, and not giving them any warning that there stands another intelligent race not far offside. Why forearm them?"

"Right," interposed Viggon Sarri. "We watch from a distance."

Linus Brein stood up. "I'd best be going back," he said. "This language analysis may get deeply involved. I'd feel better if I could supervise it myself. May I leave, Admiral Sarri?"

"We'll all leave. This conference is over until more detailed information is at hand. My orders are: Take no action, but observe closely and critically. Dismissed, gentlemen. We'll all drink to success!"

Viggon Sarri pressed the stud on his armlet and ordered a tray of refreshments. Linus Brein did not stay for his share.