The Indian operative scowled. “How do you know the Baron, personally, will go out to the Dawnworlds?”
“Because when men like Maximilian Wyler really get in the clutch there’s nobody they dare trust. He could never be certain that his closest right-hand man wouldn’t take over the reins, given some of those gismos the Dawnmen evidently have. No, you can be sure that the Baron will go himself.”
His face faded from the screen.
Birdman looked at the now opaque screen for a long moment. “So everybody’s expendable, including the complete UP staff on Phrygia. The party’s getting rough.”
Ross Metaxa had been right. By the time the four man Space Forces cruiser reached them, Ronny Bronston was in his old shape. Good food and rest had done it. He felt the same as ever. All except, deep within, he knew that he had thrown away at least twenty years, the good years, of life. A few Earth years from now and he would look and be as old as Metaxa himself. It wasn’t the happiest of prospects.
No effort whatsoever was being made to apprehend them. The Baron’s regard for his niece evidently precluded any attempt by the Phrygian spaceforces to find and destroy their craft.
It occured to Ronny Bronston that if the girl were as close as all that to the would-be dictator, perhaps she had information about the man that might be of use in later developments. As he rested in the small space vessel that they had taken over from UP, he tried to pump her, though with precious little luck.
To the extent she could, in the confined space allotted to her and the two Section G operatives, she tried to ignore them. From time to time, though, temper flared and she allowed herself to be drawn into argument.
The time, for instance, that she snapped out of a clear sky, “I don’t see why you don’t recognize that UP needs a leader such as Uncle Max.”
Ronny said mildly, “Perhaps it does.”
“Then why are you trying to hinder him? Why don’t you join him?” she demanded.
Ronny looked at her wryly, “He hasn’t proven to my satisfaction, as yet, that he’s the man he thinks he is. Perhaps history will prove otherwise. As you pointed out the other day, it is strewn with the wreckage of would-be strongmen, who didn’t make it.”
“My uncle will make it!” The girl’s natural attractiveness was accentuated in anger.
“Meanwhile”—Phil Birdman grinned at her—“there are a few of us who don’t think so.”
Ronny said, “Many aspire to supreme power, few are chosen. Take those examples you gave me the other day: Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler. They each supply a lesson.
“Alexander, for instance. He conquered the biggest empire known up to that time, but died at about my age from his inability to conquer himself. And when he died he left precious little. His immediate family, including his son, were killed off. That wonderful team of his fell apart, each trying to seize absolute power. Of them all, Ptolemy didn’t do so badly; he and his descendants got Egypt as their chunk of the pie. But the next fifty years and more was spent by the Macedonians trying to find another strongman, and failing”— Ronny twisted his mouth— “Their energies might have been put to better use.
“Or take your other example, Napoleon. He had his absolute power for while, but he was still in his forties when they kicked him out and he wound up his life there on St. Helena. And his team? They didn’t do so well, either. Some turned traitor on him, when the bets were down. Some were shot. Of them all, Bernadotte, who became king of Sweden, was about the only one who came out ahead of the game.
“And Hitler …”
“Oh, he’s the best lesson of all.” Phil laughed. “That’s the fella who taught me to believe in strongmen.”
Rita Daniels was flushing, and on her it looked remarkably good, Ronny Bronston decided. However, something came to him and he brought himself up. As a man in his early thirties, he could consider a girl of Rita’s age and weigh her in the balance as a potential life companion. But as a man past fifty, as he would be, all too soon, it wasn’t in the cards. If Ronny Bronston were ever to consider marriage, he’d better steel himself to the fact that he had better begin looking at widows in their middle-forties, not freckle-nosed girls in their twenties—no matter how provocative their pony tail hairdos.
Rita said snappishly, “The end of the strongman isn’t always disaster. Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane founded dynasties. And though Alexander died a young man, and didn’t leave one, still, it was through his efforts that Hellenism emerged and the Greek culture was spread from the Mediterranean to India. And Napoleon. When he stepped onto the scene, Europe was almost entirely feudalistic. When he left it, there was a new and more progressive socio-economic system.”
Ronny continued to needle her. “Whether or not Hellenism was an advance over the Persian culture can be debated, my dear. The Greeks wrote the history books, since they won the war, but there are some doubts about just how progressive they were. If Hitler had won his war, you can be sure that the villains who came down to us would have been Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin—not Adolph the Aryan, who would have been properly deified, as was Alexander before him.”
Phil Birdman snorted and went over to check the control screens. “This waxes too intellectual for me,” he complained. “I’m simple at heart. I just don’t like guys in a position above me to make arbitrary decisions. Sometimes it hurts—me.”
“Sometimes we need men with the ability to make quick, arbitrary decisions,” Rita snapped.
“Yeah,” Phil agreed over his shoulder. “But I like to be in a position to help decide who it’s going to be. Any of these stutes with big ambitions will tell you they’ve got super abilities and you ought to let them make the decisions. But if those abilities of theirs aren’t really so super, then I’m the cloddy who winds up crisp.”
Ronny added mildly, “Our friend Hitler was a good example. He let the German people know he was the superman to end all. And they believed him.”
“Oh, you’re both flats!” Rita flared.
Ronny said, “Well, your Uncle Max is evidently making his play. I hope we’re alive to see whether or not he succeeds.”
Rita said scornfully, “If he makes it, my friend, I doubt if you’ll survive long enough to enjoy the advantages of his guided political system.” But even as she said it, her facial expression changed, and she looked at Ronny anxiously.
Phil, from the controls, laughed. “Touché. She’s got you there, Ronny.” He looked into a zoom-screen. “Hey, I think our Space Forces cruiser is coming in.”
They considered, briefly, releasing the girl and allowing her to return to Phrygia in the small spacecraft they had taken over from the UP, which had been their home for the past week.
In fact, they called the UP Building with the intention of discussing her release, in return for leniency toward the United Planets personnel.
The only response was from a uniformed Phrygia security police colonel, who informed them coldly that there were no longer any UP personnel in the building and that he was not free to discuss the situation. He inquired after the health of their prisoner, but showed no emotion when he was told that it was excellent.
Phil Birdman looked at his colleague. “We’d better take her.”
Ronny didn’t like it, but he had no valid argument against continuing to keep an obviously valuable hostage. Whatever force the Baron had taken to the Dawnworld’s with him, always assuming that their guess was correct and he actually was on his way, was most certainly more than this tiny space Cruiser with its crew of four.
He said unhappily, “There’ll be six of us in that small ship as it is… She’d make it seven. Besides, who knows what trouble she might kick up? She’s fanatically for her Uncle Max and might try to blow us all up, just on the off chance that it might help him.”
Phil Birdman looked at him questioningly.
Ronny said, “We’d have to have her under guard for the whole trip.”
Phil said reasonably, “Why not put her into cold for the dura
tion? We can arouse her as soon as we want her awake. It won’t hurt her.”
Ronny said grudgingly, “I suppose we could do that.”
The skipper and the three junior Space Forces officers of the little cruiser were taken aback by the fact that they were to have a feminine fellow passenger, and a pretty one. And not to speak of the fact that she was the kidnapped member of the royal family of Phrygia.
This particular vessel, the Space Cruiser Pisa, had been the nearest to Phrygia when the crisis arose. Ross Metaxa had thrown his weight around and quickly had the Pisa diverted to the trouble spot. The instructions were to put ship and crew at the service of the two Section G operatives. Captain Gary Volos and his three juniors hadn’t the vaguest idea of what the assignment was to be.
Rita Daniels didn’t help matters any.
At the first opportunity, and before Ronny could hardly more than begin his explanations to the Space Forces skipper, she had yelped, “I am being detained illegally. I am the Countess Rita Daniels Wyler, niece of the Supreme Commandant of the member planet Phrygia of the United Planets, and these criminals are violating Article One of the United Planets Charter. I demand to be returned to my uncle’s palace on Phrygia immediately.”
Captain Volos was shocked. His eyes went from her to the two Section G agents in disbelief.
“Some squaw,” Birdman muttered.
Only then did it come to Ronny Bronston that he had been concentrating so long on the present emergency that he had forgotten that not one person in a billion, in the overall population of the United Planets, knew that the emergency existed. The average member of the human race had no knowledge of the existence of the original little intelligent alien life form, not to speak of the Dawnworlds and the Dawnmen.
He rapped, “Captain, your orders are to place your ship and yourself and men under the command of Agent Birdman and myself. We’ll hold you to that.”
Volos, staring, retorted, “My superiors made no mention of my condoning the breaking of the United Planets Charter. Do you deny this citizeness’ words?”
Ronny shook his head wearily. “Substantially, she is telling the truth. However, the circumstances are drastic.”
“Drastic!” one of the junior officers retorted. “How can anything be so drastic that the UP Charter be violated? Why, that’s the reason for the existence of the Space Forces. That’s why I joined it. To preserve the United Planets Charter—with my life, if necessary.”
“Oh fine,” Phil muttered. “A flag waver. Just what we need.”
“You’re going to have your chance to die for United Planets,” Ronny snapped back, impatiently. “This young lady’s uncle is attempting to subvert it. Right now, he’s on his way to some newly discovered planets with a type of man far in advance of the… well, the human race. He hopes to get ultra weapons and techniques that will enable him to take over complete control of every planet, United Planets members and otherwise, which our species has colonized. That’s why you were sent out here: To help us stop him.”
The four spacemen were staring at him as though he had gone completely around the bend.
Rita saw her opportunity. “See?” she demanded. “He’s out of his mind.”
“Obviously,” the flag waver said, his eyes wide.
“Knock it, Richardson,” his captain ordered. “I’ll take care of this.” He turned back to the two Section G agents. “I don’t know what’s doing on here, but I’m going to land and check with the local delegation of United Planets.”
“That’ll be a neat trick, as Sid Jakes would say,” Birdman muttered. “The local delegation of UP has either been shot or thrown into the cooler.”
“I keep telling you,” Ronny said, trying to maintain reasonableness in his tone, “Phrygia is in a condition of armed aggression against her fellow members of UP and in revolt against the UP as a whole.”
“You mean to tell me,” Captain Volos demanded unbelievingly, “that this planet wants to take on all three thousand worlds of the UP and conquer them?”
Rita laughed mockingly.
Ronny Bronston closed his eyes in pain. He opened them again.
He said, “Phil, cover them!” A Model H gun flowed into Phil Birdman’s hand.
XII
“Captain,” Ronny said mildly, “your orders are to put yourselves and your cruiser under the command of Agent Birdman and myself. We are going to insist you observe them.”
The skipper’s eyes went down to the gun. He recognized the competent manner in which it was being handled. He also recognized the weapon and its potentialities. He checked his three juniors with his eyes. Even Richardson avoided the question in his commanding officer’s face.
Captain Volos said coldly, “I am acting under coercion, Citizen Bronston, and wish the fact to be entered into the Pisa’s log.”
“Very well. Within a short time, I’m going to prove to you what we’ve tried to put over. You don’t seem to be a flat. When the proof is obvious, then Citizen Birdman and I will expect more hearty cooperation on the part of you and your men. Meanwhile, here is a chart. We are to head for the first of these sun systems marked in red.”
The four hesitated for a long moment.
Birdman jiggled his gun, meaningfully.
The captain took the torn chart, scowled at it, took it over to his navigating table.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked grudgingly.
“It’s a long story,” Ronny told him. “Once we get underway, I’ll tell you at least part of it. Suffice to say, for the moment, that I liberated it from our friends on Phrygia, who are trying to take over control of every human being alive.”
The captain looked with continued disbelief at him, then turned down to the chart.
Phil Birdman said cheerfully, “I think we’d better chill the squaw here, like I suggested. She’s already caused enough trouble in just these past few minutes. What could she accomplish working on our cloddy friends, here, over a period of a couple of Earth weeks, or so.”
Rita looked at Ronny. “You plan to put me in cold?”
“Can you think of something better to do with you?”
“I refuse!”
He didn’t bother to answer her.
“That’s illegal!” one of the other junior officers said belligerently. “Illegal, without the permission of the subject.”
The Indian laughed. “Friend,” he said, “you’re probably going to see one hell of a lot of illegality in the next few weeks, so you might as well start getting acclimated to it.” He looked at Ronny. “You realize we’re going to have to take this in shifts, don’t you? We aren’t going to be allowed to both sleep at once.”
Ronny sighed and nodded. “Now let’s see about this girl’s shot.”
The trip to the Dawnworlds went with little incident.
Ronny Bronston and Phil Birdman made no effort to interfere with ship routine and Captain Gary Volos’ prerogatives. They conducted themselves as passengers with but one great difference.
They stood alternating eight hour watches. Never was there a time when both slept. Never was there a time when their weapons weren’t immediately to hand.
They had taken measures, the first day, to put the Pisa’s small arms under lock, and remained the only men aboard with guns.
Largely, they spent their time playing battle chess with young Richardson, or with Mendlesohn or Takashi, the other two junior officers. The skipper himself refused to associate with the Section G agents beyond what was necessary to operate the spacecraft.
Ronny had thought he was making some progress with Richardson and Takashi, at least. Since they were going to be as exposed to the dangers of the Dawnworlds as anyone, he could see no reason for not giving the others all the information he held himself. This included a complete rundown on the true nature of United Planets and of Section G. It included the information about the little aliens, and the further information that this species had evidently been wiped out in their entirety by the Dawnmen.
He had thought he had been making progress and was disillusioned the seventh Earth day after they had left the vicinity of Phrygia.
Phil Birdman had been playing battle chess with Mendlesohn, by far the best player aboard, which irritated the Indian since he rather fancied his own game. At this point, Birdman’s double line of pawns were in full retreat before the other’s strong armor attack. And Phil was muttering unhappily to himself, even as he tried to fight a delaying action until he could bring up his own heavier pieces.
Richardson, seemingly about nothing more important than crossing the small mess hall lounge for coffee, suddenly launched himself on the Section G agent’s back.
Birdman, with no time to unholster his weapon, fell to the floor, the other clinging desperately to him, and tried to roll out. Mendlesohn, his eyes wide, scurried about the two threshing men as though not quite sure whether to throw his inconsiderable weight into the fray.
From the doorway, H gun in hand, Ronny snapped, “All right. Break it up. Richardson! On your feet, or I’ll muffle you.”
The aggressive ensign stood up, panting, his face unrepentant.
Phil Birdman sat there for a moment, shaking his head ruefully. “Why’d you stop it?” he growled at Ronny. “Now I’ll never know if I could have clobbered the young yoke.”
Ronny said, “You’re too old to be rolling around on the deck.”
“Huh,” Birdman snorted, pushing himself erect. “Look who’s talking. It won’t be long before…” He cut himself short.
Ronny Bronston looked at him bleakly.
“Sorry,” Phil said. “That’s the trouble with wisecrackers. A supposedly smart quip gets out before you realize it’s jetsam.”
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